


Lost

by JCapasso



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:53:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27628447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCapasso/pseuds/JCapasso
Summary: When Nathan loses both Audrey and Duke to the barn, he realizes how much he still cared about Duke too even after their breakup so long ago. When Duke gets back and they find Audrey, can the three of them find their way together?
Relationships: Duke Crocker/Audrey Parker/Nathan Wuornos
Comments: 16
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

Duke was more than a little worried when Dave told him how Nathan was doing right now. Not that he went into much detail. Just where he could find him and that he had ‘changed’. That was enough for Duke to know that something was seriously wrong. Learning that the troubles hadn’t disappeared in Haven wasn’t that surprising to him. After all, Jennifer’s trouble had kicked in about that time and hadn’t gone away when it should have. Learning how much worse it had gotten though worried him almost as much as Nathan did. By the time Jennifer got back with the car, he was even more impatient to get to Nathan and find Audrey and hopefully figure out a way to fix all this. 

When they pulled up and Duke got a look at what Nathan was up to, he sighed as Jennifer asked, “That’s your friend?” Duke nodded as he tried to figure out the best way to handle this. “Don’t you think you should stop him?” 

“See the thing is that…I mean, Nathan and I are…” he couldn’t help his heavy flinch when Nathan got hit again before he finished with, “complicated.” Even in the best of times there was never any telling how Nathan would respond to Duke being around, and he had no idea what to expect now if he tried to intervene. When she looked at him incredulously, Duke decided on what he hoped would be a decent way and asked her, “You got twenty bucks?” Once she handed it to him, he told her, “Stay here,” and walked over to Nathan, staying out of his line of sight as he reached around him to show the money. 

“I need a break,” Nathan snapped shoving his hand away. 

“I would’ve suggested Jamaica,” Duke quipped, wondering if he was going to end up being the one hit. Seeing the pure joy in Nathan’s eyes as he turned around was a surprise as were the hands that went to the front of his shoulders as though making sure he was real. He reached his hands up to Nathan’s shoulders, giving them a squeeze as he said a questioning, “Nathan…” Nathan was clearly beyond words and in the mood to shock Duke because all he did was laugh happily and pull Duke into a crushing hug, burying his face in Duke’s neck. Duke chuckled and hugged him back just as tightly, needing that anchor just as much as Nathan did. He couldn’t resist teasing him though as he said, “You smell. Bad.” Not that it made either of them loosen their grips, even a little bit. 

“I know,” Nathan finally said as he managed to let go. At least somewhat. He stepped back, but both of them kept contact with each other. “I thought you were dead.”

“I had other plans,” Duke joked, wondering why Nathan suddenly seemed to care so much about /him/. 

Duke got his answer when Nathan finally broke himself away from Duke with a hopeful, “Audrey…” as he looked around. 

“Nathan…” Duke grabbed his arm, stopping him from running off, but couldn’t think of how to even begin explaining right away. 

“Where is she?” Nathan asked desperately when he saw that the woman with Duke wasn’t Audrey. “Where’s Audrey?” 

“I don’t know,” Duke admitted. “I need your help to find her.”

“Right. Okay. Let me get cleaned up and get my stuff and we’ll head out,” Nathan quickly agreed. Jennifer went to fill up the gas tank and stock up for the trip while Duke went with Nathan. Duke started packing up everything Nathan had while the former police chief went to take a shower and shave and the conversation picked back up as they headed out. “After you went into the barn it vanished, like it was never there. I made it back into town just as the last of the meteors were coming down. It was chaos.”

“Dave thinks you shooting Howard disrupted the twenty-seven year cycle. That’s why the troubles didn’t go away like they were supposed to,” Duke told him, not sure if Dave had told him the same thing. If Nathan had even given Dave a chance to. 

“When the guard found out what I did, they tried to kill me. Part of me wanted to let them,” Nathan told him. Losing Audrey had been bad enough. Losing Duke too had wrecked him. Knowing that he had likely been responsible for their deaths…the only reason he hadn’t gone through with it was because dying was too easy. He deserved to suffer. “I was trying to save Audrey. Instead I thought I killed her. I thought I killed you. Killed James.” 

Duke was confused at why he was on the list with the woman he loved and their son, but put it out of his mind as he crossed his arms. “So what? That’s your excuse for having a six month long pity party? Letting people beat the crap out of you?” He knew that if he showed his actual worry that Nathan would shut down. He’d been there before. Wanting to punish himself. And he needed Nathan to see how stupid it was before things went too far for him to come back from. 

“I needed money. Couldn’t get a real job. Have to stay off the radar. The guard…if they found me…I’m dead,” he tried to explain. It wasn’t about a pity party. Okay, it wasn’t /only/ about a pity party. “You got out of the barn today. It might have spit her out as well,” Nathan tried to change the subject. 

“Well, yeah, I’d like to believe that too, but how come no one’s heard from her, Nathan?” Duke tried to point out that it wasn’t going to be easy and there were no guarantees. It was one thing getting his own hopes up, but getting Nathan’s up when he was as fragile as this wasn’t something he could stomach. 

“Barn sent you to Boston. Might have sent Audrey to Burma for all we know,” Nathan said as he emptied the saddlebags of his bike into his duffel bag. “You said Jennifer could hear what happened in the barn. Maybe she can help us narrow it down. Can we trust her?” 

Duke couldn’t believe that Nathan was actually asking him of all people that question and seemed ready to accept his judgement on the matter. That was definitely a first and had him giving a more honest answer than he likely would have otherwise. “I don’t know. I just met her,” he shrugged. “But she trusted me when she didn’t have to. I get the feeling that she needs us just as much as we need her.” 

“We can take her back to Haven,” Nathan decided. 

“Whoa…/we/?” Duke asked incredulously. “Look, Nathan. I’m /used/ to people wanting me dead…what are you gonna do about the guard?” 

Nathan hated hearing Duke talk like that. He always had, but especially now. Especially since losing him had made him realize that some part of him still loved Duke even after all these years, everything they’d been through. He knew that Duke was waiting for an answer to his question though, so he just said a quick, “Figure something out. I need my resources. I gotta send APBs out, send hospitals descriptions…she could be hurt, disoriented…” 

Jennifer interrupted them, seeing as an argument of some sort was about to start, not realizing that they always looked like that. “Okay, so we got a full tank of gas and some snacks for the drive. I don’t know what you like, but everyone likes slim jims.”

“I like slim jims,” Nathan said actually paying attention to her for the first time and after a moment of scrutinization, he hardened into cop mode. “Duke, you drive. I need to talk to Jennifer,” he said firmly before turning to her and saying, “You need to tell me /everything/ you know about the barn.”

Duke gave Jennifer an apologetic look as she hesitantly handed him her keys and it quickly turned reassuring when he could see how nervous she was with Nathan’s intensity. Duke hadn’t asked her much of anything once she told him how her meds had shut it all off. Once he confirmed that she didn’t know where Audrey was, he started working towards earning her trust for future help and hopefully get her off the meds at some point. Nathan was apparently taking the opposite track. Duke had to step in a few times during the drive to make Nathan back off when he started pushing too hard, which usually started an argument between them, but took the attention off Jennifer long enough for her to get herself back together. Needless to say, it was a pretty tense trip and it didn’t get much better once they got to Haven and found themselves surrounded by guns. 

When Nathan started arguing with Jordan, Duke tried to keep Jennifer updated on what was going on. He felt his blood turn to ice as Nathan threw out his idea and he desperately hoped that Nathan was just talking out of his ass and had no intention of actually going through with it. Unfortunately, he knew better. Everything that Nathan had said since they’d met up this afternoon had been leading to this and Duke hated himself for not seeing it. At this point there was no way out but through though so he threw his own two cents worth and used his far superior skills at convincing people to get them free. After being interrupted by a tornado, which required literally picking Jennifer up and carrying her to cover when she panicked, everyone else dispersed and Duke was able to confront Nathan. “Okay, show’s over. Your plan isn’t really to let Audrey kill you. I mean, you were just…putting one over on the guard right?” 

“No, that is the plan,” Nathan said seriously. 

“Okay, I’m not really up on what’s going on, but that is a bad plan,” Jennifer chimed in. 

“It’s the only way to stop the troubles,” Nathan tried to reason. “Everything that’s happening in this town is my fault.”

Duke hated that he couldn’t actually argue with that so he tried a different way. “Audrey’s never gonna go for this.” 

“Audrey was willing to walk into that barn and have her personality stripped away, to forget everyone she ever cared about. Audrey was willing to die to stop the troubles,” Nathan argued. 

“Let’s just say you’re right,” Duke said, realizing that he wasn’t going to convince Nathan of that right now if ever. He had dug in his heels. He would have to try a different way. “That means for the troubles to end, you have to be Audrey’s true love. Are you sure about that?” Duke remembered Colorado, and then their goodbye where she implied that it had meant so much to her. He remembered how he was the only one she trusted to keep Nathan from messing everything up, fat lot of good that did. Yes, he did remember Audrey’s goodbye to Nathan, the fact that they had a son together, the way that things had never felt quite right between him and Audrey, but the point was that he couldn’t be sure. He didn’t see how either of them could be. Not if they were thinking straight anyway. Hell he couldn’t even be sure that Nathan wasn’t his true love given the feelings that had always lingered even after their nasty break-up all those years ago. 

“I’ve never been more sure about anything in my entire life,” Nathan said coldly before walking off and leaving a speechless Duke behind. It was Jennifer tugging on his arm that finally got Duke moving to where Dwight was waiting on them.


	2. Chapter 2

Duke was a little irritated when he learned that after they had finally gotten the trouble solved, he’d ended up cornering Jennifer and spent half the night interrogating her. Duke tried to explain to Nathan that Jennifer didn’t respond well to that, but he didn’t listen. He never did. Audrey had always been Nathan’s conscience before but without her, Duke was failing miserably at it, and now Jennifer was feeling like it was all her fault that they didn’t find Audrey. Duke offered to let her stay in Audrey’s apartment. At least until they found Audrey. Part of it was hoping that being closer to Audrey’s things might jog something in her mind without traumatizing the poor girl, but mostly it was just because she needed a place to stay and he’d been the one who dragged her into all this mess so it was only right that he be the one to fix it. The next day, there was another trouble and Jennifer ended up right in the middle of it. Nathan wanted to take her along to help and no matter how much Duke argued with him, he wouldn’t let it go. 

Jennifer had been watching them since they’d met up with Nathan. Even before that, seeing the way Duke worried about him as they were heading for him. Almost as much as they both worried about this Audrey chick. Then the standoff they’d had over who Audrey’s true love was and the way they bickered like an old married couple, and she finally realized that she was never going to figure it out on her own. They were driving to the fire station when said, “Okay, I have to ask. You two and Audrey…are the three of you a thing or something?” 

Duke burst out laughing despite his mood, “Yeah, no,” he said quickly. “Not a chance. She and Nathan are a thing.”

“Why would you think the three of us are?” Nathan asked confused, but not willing to immediately dismiss the idea the way Duke had. Not that he was going to encourage it in any way after Duke’s reaction. 

“Oh…well…it’s just…” she was a little embarrassed now, but felt the need to at least try to answer him. “You two seem like…something…I mean, the way you were so worried about each other and your bickering and stuff…but you both seem like you’re into Audrey too, so…I mean, I know there are people who do relationships with more than two people, so I just thought maybe…never mind. It was stupid.”

“Believe me, sweetheart, even if either of them were the type to participate in something like that, I’d be the last person they’d choose,” Duke said amusedly but with a hint of bitterness underneath that Nathan didn’t miss and got him thinking. Before anything else could be said though, they were pulling up at the firehouse and work was back on their minds. If there was one good thing about dragging Jennifer along, she realized now how important it was to find Audrey and finally got off her meds that were useless anyway. 

Jennifer realized when she found out about Nathan’s trouble that she hadn’t been as wrong as she’d thought about them. Duke and Nathan had known each other and counted on each other their whole lives apparently. There was definitely something more than friendship between them, and when she thought back over the conversation, she realized that Nathan hadn’t thrown off the suggestion the way Duke had, and Duke was clearly just bitter over the fact that they didn’t seem to care about them. She hoped that she had at least put the idea in their minds and when and if they found Audrey, she would try to find an opening to put the idea in her mind too. She got that Nathan and Audrey supposedly had some epic kind of love, but she wanted Duke to be happy too. He deserved it. And Nathan obviously felt something for him, even if he didn’t act on it. The vibes she got during the standoff about who Audrey’s true love was she got the vibe that Duke thought there was at least a chance it could be him so maybe Audrey loved them both too. It would be a nice happy ending for everybody and maybe the two of them together could talk Nathan out of his suicidal plan. 

Duke didn’t know why he lied to Jennifer about his trouble, other than the fact that he hated it so much he preferred to forget that he had it. It was definitely different than the reason he didn’t tell Wade about it though. Wade knowing about it would cause more problems than it would fix. He had to protect his brother from this whole crazy mess. His lie to Jennifer came back to haunt him later though when some kind of blood creature attacked them at the police station and dripped on him. It had to happen when she was already so freaked out about the voices coming back and now she was looking at him with such fear that he hated it and Jordan’s little bitchy comments weren’t helping matters in the slightest. 

They ended up getting cornered in the police station by this thing and it wouldn’t let them near any of the exits but it definitely seemed intent on getting to Nathan. When the taser didn’t work, nor did Jordan’s trouble, and the guy that started it had no control over it, Duke knew what he had to do. “It couldn’t kill me,” he said softly. “It tried to, but I just absorbed it,” he said more firmly as he set his decision in stone. 

“Duke…that was a few drops,” Nathan said worriedly. “You don’t know what absorbing that much troubled blood will do to you.” 

“Yeah, maybe not, but I do know exactly what that much troubled blood wants to do to you,” Duke said as he moved towards it. 

Nathan reached out to stop him. He couldn’t let Duke put himself at risk like this. Not for him, not for anyone. As badly as he needed Audrey back he couldn’t go on without Duke either. Not when he was just getting the idea that the three of them could have something. There was still too much unsaid. When Duke shoved him back, he tried to fight, but when Dwight got involved to stop him too, he knew it was a lost cause. He just had to hope that Duke could come through this. Dwight was still holding him back as Duke was doubled over, crouched on the floor shaking. 

“Duke?” Dwight asked concerned as he put a hand on Duke’s shoulder only to find himself held by the throat, feet off the floor and being choked. 

“Don’t touch me,” Duke snarled, eyes glowing a bright silver as Dwight struggled in his grip. 

Nathan walked over slowly, making sure not to make any sudden moves so Duke wouldn’t get spooked. His hand itched to move to Duke’s shoulder, but he knew better than to touch Duke when he was like this, unlike Dwight apparently. “Duke…this isn’t you,” he said softly and carefully as Dwight begged him to stop. It took a second for Duke to register Nathan’s words before he forced himself to let go and stumble backwards and then double over again, this time falling to the floor completely. 

Jennifer tried to rush over to him, but Nathan grabbed her and held her back. “What if he’s dying?” she asked worriedly. 

“Get back. It might not be safe yet,” Dwight told her seeing that Nathan was beyond words with just a look of stricken fear on his face as his eyes were glued to Duke. 

Once Duke met his eyes, Nathan could see that he was going to be okay and felt himself breathe again as he let Jennifer go. He forced back the spike of jealousy as she knelt beside him and just said, “Let’s make sure Duke got it all,” and headed out. He wanted to give them their privacy. He could see that Jennifer had a thing for Duke and the way Duke was all protective of her there was a good chance he felt the same way and Nathan had no right to interfere with that no matter how much he wanted to. He couldn’t even talk to Duke about the three-way relationship thing without talking to Audrey first to make sure that she was okay with it too and if Duke had moved on by then, well that was just life. 

Nathan got another dose of cold water when Jordan cornered him and reminded him of his promise. That he was supposed to die to end the troubles. That he had to let Audrey kill him. There was no happy future with Duke and Audrey for him. And he knew then that, no matter how unfair it would be to Jennifer, he had to stop what was going on with her and Duke. When they got Audrey back and she killed him, she would need Duke a lot more than Jennifer did. For Audrey, he would be unfair. He just needed to think of what to say and how to say it. 

When Duke noticed Dwight sitting in his bar, he went over and sat next to him. “Did I say sorry, for crushing your windpipe earlier?” 

“Nope,” Dwight shook his head. 

“I am,” Duke told him, taking a long drink of his beer. 

“Least I didn’t get wet this time,” Dwight joked pulling a chuckle from Duke before getting serious. “You know, I’m not a big fan of this whole Crocker thing, but sometimes it comes in handy.” 

“Why don’t we drink to a day without the troubles. Just one. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for.”

“Why, you don’t like being a hero,” Dwight jibed. 

Duke snorted derisively. Who wanted to be a hero. Throwing themselves into danger all the time, lucky to even get a thank you from anyone. Hell, he wasn’t even paid for it like cops were. Being a hero had nothing in it for him and if he could turn off the part of him that always cared without risking becoming the same monster as his ancestors he would do it in a heartbeat. Before he could manage to respond though, his brother stumbled over drunkenly, having overheard that last remark. “If my brother is a hero, I would like to buy him a drink. What did Duke do?” 

Dwight just downed the last of his beer, not having any intention of getting into any of that. He would let Duke spin whatever line for his brother that he wanted to. “This looks like fun. Catch you later Crockers,” he said as he got up and walked out. 

“What’s he talking about?” Wade asked conspiratorially. 

Duke sighed heavily and shook his head. “Leave it alone, Wade,” he said wearily. 

“What I can’t celebrate my brother’s accomplishments? Come on,” Wade coaxed. 

Duke was saved by the bell as Jennifer rushed over. “Duke, you need to call Nathan.” Even Wade recognized that something serious was going on. He knew that Nathan was some kind of cop but he’d been gone for the last six months along with Duke and this girl was with them when they came back. H could tell that Jennifer was completely freaked out so he didn’t argue when Duke took off with her, pulling out his phone on the way. Maybe his brother really was some kind of secret hero and he now had even more intention of cornering him and finding out what was going on at the next available opportunity.


	3. Chapter 3

Duke got Jennifer settled in the apartment upstairs and mostly calmed down by the time Nathan got there and she started talking. Learning that Audrey was apparently still in the barn was a shock to all of them. Unfortunately, Jennifer hadn’t heard much yet, but Nathan was still questioning her on the little there had been. By the time Nathan had taken her through it four times, Duke had enough. “She’s already told you everything. More than once. Leave her alone, Nate.” 

“No, it’s fine,” Jennifer told Duke. “I’m okay. I can keep going.” She felt bad for not having any more and if hearing it over and over again was what helped Nathan feel better she would do it. 

Duke huffed and shook his head as he walked out the door, causing both Nathan and Jennifer to wince. “Duke’s right. I’m sorry. Just…write down anything else you hear okay?” Nathan asked and she nodded profusely. That would be so much better than the million questions. “Thanks. We’ll talk more tomorrow.” Nathan needed to talk to Duke. It was now or never. “Hey Duke…” He called as he ran to catch up with him at the bottom of the stairs. 

“What? Not bugging her with the same questions over and over again all night long?” Duke scoffed. 

“No, I…I asked her to write down anything else she hears for now. I just…need to talk to you. Privately.”

“Yeah okay,” Duke shrugged and motioned towards his boat as he headed that way. He led Nathan inside to the stateroom and poured them both a drink. “What’s up?” 

“Look, I know that you and Jennifer are getting close and all, but…”

“That’s what this is about?” Duke huffed irritated. “That’s none of your business, Nathan, and if you think that I’m going to let that interfere with finding Audrey…”

“Just shut up and hear me out for a minute okay?” Duke crossed his arms and glared, but shut up. “That’s not it at all. I know you wouldn’t let anything interfere with finding Audrey. It’s just…when we find her…and she kills me…she’s going to need you.” 

“What are you saying, Nathan?” Duke asked warily. “You think I would turn my back on her when she needs me just because there are other people in my life?” 

“No, I just…okay, look…I know that Audrey loves me, okay? But I also know that she loves you. And when I’m gone…”

“I think you got hit in the head one too many times out there if you think Audrey loves me,” Duke scoffed. “We tried. It didn’t work.”

“What do you mean, you tried?” Nathan asked confusedly. 

“We had a date at one point. Not long after we met. She stood me up. For work, yeah, which I could have got, if she had actually let me know. She knew for two days that she wouldn’t be able to make our date and said nothing until I called her when she was late. Then again, during our trip to Colorado, we kissed. And that was it. It didn’t go anywhere. We came back and she fell all over you talking about how much she loved you.” 

“I don’t know what happened with either of those incidents,” Nathan admitted. “Maybe there were misunderstandings or something, but I know how she felt. I know how she looked at you, and I saw that goodbye between you.”

“So…what? You want me to stay available to be her second choice?” Duke asked incredulously. 

“Look, I know it’s not fair, and I probably shouldn’t be asking, but…I need her to be okay when I’m gone, Duke. And you’re the only one I know that can do that. I know you love her too and I’m asking you, please. Take care of her for me,” Nathan begged. 

Duke sighed heavily. “Okay. Fine. Whatever. Jennifer and I are just friends anyway, and yeah, maybe it could have turned into more at some point, but…you’re right. Audrey comes first. I can live with being second choice if you can lower yourself to asking me to be.”

Nathan winced at Duke’s words. There was more he needed Duke to know, but he didn’t know how to say, so he tried to lead into it. He was never good at this whole talking things out thing, but Duke was. And Duke knew him well enough to pick up on the fact that there was more. At least, he used to. “It’s not about ‘lowering myself’,” Nathan started. “If there’s anyone that I have to share her heart with, I’m glad it’s you.” 

“What do you mean?” Duke asked scrutinizingly, trying to figure out what Nathan was actually trying to say. 

“I mean…that I want you to be happy just as much as I want her to be happy,” Nathan said softly. 

“You hate me,” Duke pointed out. 

“I don’t…hate you, Duke. I never did. I just…” Nathan trailed off with a shrug. 

“No, you don’t get to do that, Nathan. You just what?” Duke asked frustrated. He was starting to feel like he was being played and he hated that. 

“You left,” Nathan said bluntly. “We had a stupid argument and you just left. Without a word. For over ten years.” 

Duke snorted derisively. “It was more than just a stupid argument Nathan. It was a problem that couldn’t be solved without one of us giving up everything we were. I couldn’t live with being your dirty little secret anymore, but I got why I had to be. I mean, your dad was a cop. You were training to be a cop, and I was the town criminal. There was no way around that. If we had come out, it would have ruined everything you’d ever worked for and I couldn’t do that to you. I left so that you could have your perfect little life without me screwing it up.” 

“You didn’t seem to have any problem using me for your own ends when you got back,” Nathan pointed out angrily. 

“I didn’t ask you to flash your badge at that coast guard agent,” Duke snapped. “I didn’t ask you to vouch for me. I had my stuff hidden just fine on my own. They never would have found it. I invited you out to talk. To try and reconnect. To hopefully find my best friend again, despite knowing that we could never be more than that. That was all. And then when you were going to quit being a cop over it, I anonymously ratted out one of my associates. To give you a big bust and the credibility you needed to get ahead.”

“I was going to quit being a cop for /you/, you moron,” Nathan snapped back realizing how much he may have midjudged Duke over the years. “Not because I didn’t have credibility. Because I realized what you apparently did before you left. That I had to choose between being a cop and being with you.”

“All the more reason for me to do what I did,” Duke said without regret. “I could never have lived with myself if you’d given up your life, your career, your dreams, just for me.” 

“So my choice didn’t matter?” Nathan asked coldly. 

“Not when it was so stupid!” Duke argued before throwing up his hands. “God! Why are we even arguing about this now? It’s ancient history!” 

“Because I still love you, damnit,” Nathan said heatedly, slamming his hand on the table. When he realized what he’d said, his eyes went wide and the color drained from his face. He knew that he had to go on though. This had to be hashed out. “I always have,” he all but whispered. “That’s why I was so mad for so long. Why I couldn’t let it go. Because it hurt too much. But now…it doesn’t matter anymore. I’ll be gone once we find Audrey, but I’m okay with that. Because both of the people that I love will still have a chance to be happy, and the town will be saved. That’s all that matters now.”

Duke blinked in shock at Nathan’s outburst and felt the emotion welling up inside him more and more with every word out of Nathan’s mouth and when he finished, Duke couldn’t help himself anymore. Mistake or not, he just /had/ to. He slid around the circular booth and cupped Nathan’s jaw, pulling him around and kissing him. 

Nathan couldn’t feel Duke’s hand, or his lips, but when Duke’s tongue entered his mouth he could taste him and Duke hadn’t changed a bit in the last fifteen years since they’d last done this. But he had. He let it go for a minute, holding onto the last little bit of sensation he could remember from so long ago and letting that fuel his memories before the absence of everything else just hurt too much and he had to pull away. He leaned his forehead on Duke’s shoulder breathing in his unique scent, trying to will his tears away, not even able to feel the long fingers carding through his hair. “I’m sorry. I just…I can’t feel you and I hate that and it’s just…”

“You’ve been with people you couldn’t feel before,” Duke pointed out, trying not to let the hurt take over. “Jess and Jordan…”

“Yeah, but not /you/,” Nathan said, lifting his head to look in Duke’s eyes. “It’s different with you. Jess was more of an experiment than anything and Jordan…she was a means to an end. You though…I remember you. I remember what you felt like, and now…without that…it’s like a shadow of everything and I just…can’t.”

Duke swallowed around the lump in his throat as he nodded. He got it now. In a choice between the person he could feel and the one he couldn’t there was no contest. “That doesn’t mean I can just let you go, Nathan. Especially not now. We can find a way to save the town without sacrificing you. Maybe we can even try out that whole three-way relationship idea that Jennifer mentioned. I mean, that’s what brought all this up isn’t it?” 

“Duke, no,” Nathan shook his head. “There isn’t another way and you know it. I have to admit, the idea of having a future with both you and Audrey…it’s tempting…but it won’t get rid of the troubles. I’ll still never be able to feel you and I can’t live like that. And I know that you don’t want to live with your curse either. I mean, what happens if one of you accidently bite my lip too hard and I bleed on you in the middle of sex? It can’t work that way.”

Duke winced at the thought of that. Just being touched at all when that bloodlust washed over him had horrible consequences. Having it happen in the middle of sex…he could end up killing both of them. It would be a nightmare. “Yeah. Okay. But you and Audrey can still be happy together. If you’re right and she loves me too, then I can be the one…”

“No!” Nathan yelped. “No, absolutely not. I…I just got you back. I already lost you once and it was all my fault. All of this…it’s my fault. I /have/ to be the one to set it right.” 

“You really think that I could handle losing you any easier?” Duke scoffed.

“You were so willing to accept Audrey’s choice to walk into that barn. You can’t accept mine?” Nathan pointed out.

“Because Audrey would still exist in some way,” Duke tried to explain the difference. “She would have survived.”

“Everything that made her Audrey would have been wiped away. She would have been someone completely different. That’s worse than death,” Nathan argued. 

Duke gritted his teeth, unable to refute Nathan’s point. “Okay. Fine. But don’t expect me to try and talk her into it. Don’t expect me to support it in any way. Non-interference is the best you’re gonna get from me.” He knew that he wouldn’t work anyway, but it had to be brought up. It had to be the one she loved the /most/ though and she had chosen Nathan. No matter how she felt about him, Nathan was her choice and he was okay that part. Just not the part where it meant Nathan had to die. 

“And when I’m gone?” Nathan circled back to the main point of this conversation. 

“Then I’ll take care of her. I’ll love her enough for both of us,” Duke promised in a whisper, unable to keep himself from brushing his knuckles down Nathan’s cheek despite knowing that he couldn’t feel it. Duke could and that was what mattered right then. 

“Thank you,” Nathan whispered as he got up and left.


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning, Jennifer noticed Duke working on the deck of his boat and headed down to let her know what all she’d heard after they left last night and Duke knew that Nathan needed to know sooner rather than later so he called Nathan down. While they were waiting, Duke had an idea and brought them all out to Kick ‘Em Jenny Neck. “I hate this place,” Nathan grumbled as they milled around the field where the barn was last seen. “The barn crumpled to nothing. How could Audrey still be inside?” he asked impatiently. Being here was putting him in a worse mood than usual. And right on the heels of last night wasn’t doing him any favors either. 

Duke was more than used to Nathan’s crankiness, so he was unphased by it and just pointed out, “The time travelling barn that turned ten seconds into six months for me? That barn?” 

Nathan just ignored the sarcasm and moved on. “So there’s a door? There’s a way for Audrey to get out?” 

“That’s what Jennifer heard,” Duke said quietly. “But her connection wasn’t great. I thought she might do better out here.”

“The place where we last saw the barn,” Nathan nodded. He had to admit it wasn’t a terrible idea. Except… “You landed in Boston. Audrey could come out of that barn anywhere.” 

“Yeah. Let’s hope,” Duke sighed, before realizing what he’d let slip, but knew by the look on Nathan’s face that he wasn’t getting away without an explanation. “Jennifer said…if Audrey doesn’t come out that door…she dies.” Nathan just stared at him for moment before turning to stalk towards Jennifer. “Look…Nate…” Duke tried in vain to stop him. 

“What else do you hear?” Nathan asked Jennifer sternly. 

“Nothing,” Jennifer said nervously. 

Duke got between them and put a hand to Nathan’s chest. “Hey…back off…okay?” 

“I need her!” Nathan argued trying to push past Duke who pushed back. 

It took a few more pushes to get Nathan backed up far enough from Jennifer not to crowd her. “What are you doing?” Duke asked incredulously. “You are freaking her out.”

Nathan glared, more angry at himself than at Duke, but didn’t make another move towards Jennifer and then his phone rang. Duke went over to check in with Jennifer and give her some gentle encouragement while Nathan was on the phone before heading back over, hoping to keep Nathan from freaking her out again. “That was Dwight,” Nathan told him. “Another kid’s gone missing. Another four year old. But Audrey could walk out here at any second…”

“Usually, when Jennifer hears Audrey, she’s been relaxed,” Duke tried to explain. “Now getting her to relax is something that you suck at. But what don’t you suck at?” 

“Solving cases. Finding people,” Nathan muttered when he realized that Duke was actually waiting for an answer. 

“Exactly. So…you go find the kids. I will get her to calm down. We’ll find Audrey and all live hap…you know what I mean,” he finished despondently. 

They headed back to the boat and returned to the mainland so Nathan could get to work. While he was gone Duke tried to teach Jennifer yoga, meditation, and other methods, but it wasn’t working yet by the time Duke’s phone rang. “Duke, how’s Jennifer doing?” 

“She is…fantastic,” he said not quite honestly. “Yeah we’ve charged her chi, aligned her chakras, now we’re just flushing her brain with blood.”

“I don’t think this is working,” Jennifer took that moment to say. “My sinuses are exploding.”

“I’m coming over,” Nathan said worriedly. 

“Nonononono. Can you just hang on a second?” Duke pulled the phone from his ear and turned to Jennifer. “You are doing great. Just…keep hanging.” He put the phone back to his ear and walked away as he whispered harshly. “Hey Nathan, you come here, bring some nails for Audrey’s coffin because, having you here is the last thing that Jennifer needs.”

“Well your plan isn’t working,” Nathan said pointedly. 

“Well what did you think? That I was gonna turn her into the Yogi in half a day?” Duke asked defensively. 

“Then what the hell is your plan?” Nathan asked impatiently. 

“Here’s an analogy,” Duke tried a different track. “Jennifer’s at the free throw line. One second left in the big game. Now if she thinks about it, she chokes, so I am trying to distract her from the pressure. Make her think about anything else except what she has to do so she opens up her mind.” 

“And she starts to hear,” Nathan sighed, realizing that Duke was right. “Smart.”

“Yes. It is,” Duke said with a roll of his eyes as he hung up the phone turning back to Jennifer. “Okay. Let’s try meditation again,” he said cheerfully. 

“You know,” Jennifer told him wearily as he helped her down. “You mention that it happens when I’m relaxed…well it also happens when I’m alone.”

“That your way of telling me to get lost?” Duke chuckled. 

“I think I get how to meditate now, but having you here is…distracting,” she admitted. “I think you should take this opportunity to go talk to your brother.”

“What do you mean?” Duke asked confused. “About what?” 

“Look, I get that you want him out of town and away from all this stuff, but I think it’s pretty clear now that he’s not going anywhere. If you really want him to leave, you have to tell him /something/. Give him some reason that he’ll accept,” Jennifer told him. “And since you need to stay close while I’m doing this, it’s the perfect opportunity.” 

“You’ll call me if you get anything?” Duke asked, realizing that she was right. He’d been waffling on that himself for a few days too. 

“I promise,” she nodded, taking her phone out of her pocket and waving it at him to prove it.

Duke nodded and headed back towards the Gull to find his brother, not intending to go far enough that she would need to use her phone anyway. “Hey Wade, can we talk?” 

“Yeah, sure,” Wade said heading for the door as Duke led to what was becoming their talking spot. The lounge chairs on the deck overlooking his boat and the water. “Is this were you tell me the big secret?”

“Something like that,” Duke huffed as he tried to figure out how to start this. 

“So what is it? Are you like…a secret agent or something?” Wade asked excitedly. 

“Do what?” Duke asked amusedly shocked. 

“Well, you disappear for six months without a word and everybody thinks you’re dead. You come back with a cop and that girl…is she an agent in training or something? And then you’re running around with the police at the drop of a hat since you got back and the police chief said something about you being a hero…”

“Okay, yeah. I guess I can see how that might make sense…if you ignore everything about me,” Duke laughed. “No, I’m not a secret agent. I wish this was that good.”

“Then what is it?” Wade asked impatiently. 

“Okay, look. All your talk about how I won with dad and everything, I kept trying to tell you that I really didn’t. You were the lucky one…”

“Oh you’re not gonna start that again are you?” Wade rolled his eyes. 

“Yes, Wade. I am. And you need to listen this time,” Duke said firmly. “The reason that I was the one dad kept is because I didn’t have a mom looking out for me like you did. Your mother would never have let you get involved with his plans.”

“What plans?” Wade asked incredulously. “I spent entire summers here. I would have seen if he was hurting you or something.” 

“Yeah. You would have. But he wasn’t training me yet. He was still just grooming me at that point,” Duke said with a sigh. “To go into the family business.”

“What, fishing? How is that so awful?” 

“No. Not fishing. Assassination,” Duke told him. When Wade just gave him a gobsmacked look, he said, “That’s right. Our father was a serial killer. An assassin. And then one of his marks got the better of him and killed him before he could kill her.”

“No. He was lost at sea,” Wade shook his head. 

“Yeah. That was the lie we were all told. I found out the truth last year. When I found what he left for me,” Duke tried to explain. 

“You’re lying,” Wade argued. “How could you say that?” 

“Because it’s true, Wade. I saw his journal. All of his kills written out in great detail in his own handwriting. And before that, his father’s handwriting. And his father’s. And back hundreds of years. /That/ is the legacy he left us. That is the instructions he left for /me/. A note, telling me who to kill.”

“I want to see this journal,” Wade said skeptically. 

“You can’t. I burned it,” Duke lied. There was too much information about the troubles in there. “I didn’t want anything to do with it or his twisted legacy.” 

“And you really expect me to believe that?” Wade scoffed. 

“Look, the weapons box he left me…I buried it in front of his gravestone. Go dig it up if you don’t believe me. There should be enough there to at least convince you of the truth,” Duke said heatedly. Wade got up without a word and stalked off and Duke poured himself another drink and took a few shaky breaths. He hoped against hope that Wade would come back and believe him so that he could get him out of town. He would have preferred to be with him when he dug up the box, but he couldn’t risk Audrey by going too far away from Jennifer right now. 

When Wade got back, he had the box in his hands and a sick look on his face. He plopped back down in the chair and opened the box to show Duke. “This is all…our ancestor’s weapons. Our serial killer ancestors.” 

“Yes,” Duke nodded curtly. 

“Why wouldn’t you tell me?!” 

“Because I didn’t want to destroy your image of our father like mine was destroyed,” Duke said mostly honestly. “Because I didn’t want you involved in any of this.”

“Then why tell me now?” 

“Because I need you to get out of town, Wade. And not because I don’t want you around. Because of all this,” Duke tried again to get through to him. 

“Why? What does me being here matter?” Wade asked confusedly. 

“Because this town has long memories and there are far too many people who know the Crocker legacy. They accept me somewhat because I’ve worked my ass off to prove that I’m not like them, but I’m under a lot of pressure to get you out of town. I can’t keep us /both/ out of their line of fire,” Duke reasoned. 

“Then I’ll prove myself too,” Wade argued. 

“No,” Duke shook his head. “You don’t need to spend the rest of your life trying to redeem our name in this small town.” This had just backfired spectacularly. 

“You are,” Wade pointed out. 

“Because I don’t have a choice. I came back here because of a promise I made to dad. Apparently so he could have me in the right place to get that at the right time. By the time I knew all this, I had a life here. I can’t leave Nathan, and now Jennifer, and Audrey is missing, I have to help them find her. And I’m being watched too closely to get out now.”

“What are you doing, Duke?” a voice called dangerously from the corner and he turned to see Vince there flanked by two gun-toting guard members.


	5. Chapter 5

Duke got up and headed towards them. “Look, you wanted him out of town, I’m getting him out of town. This is the only way he’s gonna go,” he explained as he pulled the around the corner, both hoping and not that Wade had heard that part, but not able to let him hear the rest. 

“By telling him our town’s most closely guarded secret?” Vince asked pointedly. 

“No. I’m not telling him anything about the troubles. Just that we come from a long line of serial killers and that we’re not welcome here,” Duke told him. 

“Fine. Make sure you keep it that way. And get that box gone again too,” Vince warned before turning and stalking off. 

Duke returned to his brother and sat back down. “Part of the group that wants me gone?” Wade asked worriedly. 

“Yeah. And there are a lot more of them too,” Duke admitted. 

“Then go to the police or something,” Wade told him. 

“Not an option,” Duke shook his head. “Even if the police would be on my side, they can’t be everywhere at once. Not to mention if they go poking around and following us around…I have too much business that isn’t above-board.”

“So you expect me to just leave and let my little brother get strong-armed and threatened all the time? I’ve seen people like them in the Gull a /lot/ since I’ve been here. Barely ordering anything and glaring all the time.”

“Yeah. Because of you. Because you’re an unknown Crocker. They mostly leave me alone and I’ve even helped them out more than once.”

“That hero thing that was mentioned?” 

“Yeah. Like that. I’ve helped to infiltrate the group that dad was a part of and bring them down. I’ve helped to protect their targets. They won’t touch me. But you’re a different story.” He could tell that he was getting through to his brother…finally, so he put the finishing touch on. “Look, I promise I’ll keep in touch when I can. And I’ll even come visit wherever you decide to settle down whenever things are calm enough here. But you’re the only family I have left. The only Crocker that’s worth anything. I /need/ you safe. I need you out of all this mess.” 

“Okay,” Wade sighed in agreement as he got up. He reached out a hand to help Duke up too and pulled him into a hug. “But I’m holding you to that promise, little brother. And if something happens to you, I’m coming straight back here to make sure someone pays.” 

“Wade…” Duke said wearily. 

“That’s the best you’re gonna get,” Wade said firmly, still hugging his brother tightly. “And I’m not the only Crocker worth anything you know. You are too.” 

“Thanks, Wade,” Duke cracked a smile before breaking apart, patting his brother on the shoulder. 

“I guess I’ll go pack my stuff. I should have enough money to find a hotel somewhere for a few weeks until I find something more permanent…”

“Here,” Duke said taking him inside and to the safe, handing him thirty thousand dollars. “That should cover you for a while and if you ever need more…”

“I…thank you, Duke. Really. But you’re sure you can spare this? I mean, I’ve been running this place for a while. It does good, but not /that/ good.”

“This is far from my only business,” Duke laughed. “And by far my least profitable.” 

“Right. Of course,” Wade rolled his eyes. In Duke’s world, crime definitely did pay. “Thank you, then.” He supposed he had kind of earned it anyway, running this place for six months without taking any salary. 

“Staying safe is all the thanks I need,” Duke told him seriously and Wade just nodded and went to start packing his things. He was on his way out of town an hour later and Duke breathed a sigh of relief. 

Once he saw his brother off, he headed back to the boat as the sun was setting to check on Jennifer. She apparently heard him come up because she held up a hand to shush him before he could speak, and Duke nodded, despite her eyes being closed and went to find a place to sit quietly until she was ready to tell him what she heard. It didn’t take long for her to come out of it complaining about the foghorn that distracted her so it was back to square one. He could tell that she was getting tired, but he wasn’t going to suggest quitting until she did. They were on a timeclock now and they couldn’t take a break. 

It was almost midnight when Nathan called to check in again. “Duke, what’s Jennifer heard?” 

“Lots of good stuff,” Duke brushed him off. 

“We have to find a…” Jennifer tried to tell him, but Duke shushed her frantically. 

“Duke, are you there?” 

“Yeah, could you just hang on a second please?” Duke told Nathan before covering the speaker of the phone. “You’ve met Nathan,” he said pointedly to Jennifer. 

“Yeah…” she replied not sure where he was going with that. 

“And do you think that we really want him to know that if we don’t find the door then Audrey dies?”

“Probably not,” she winced, getting his point. 

“Probably not,” he agreed before putting the phone back to his ear. “Nathan, find the kids. We’re doing great.” He knew that Nathan was on just as much of a deadline for finding those kids as they were for finding Audrey anyway. 

“Okay, I’ll call you back,” Nathan said as he turned his siren on and headed off. 

When Duke heard the siren over the phone, he started getting an idea. “Son of a bitch,” he said irritated with himself. “The foghorn!”

“What?” Jennifer asked confused. 

“The foghorn,” Duke said again. “I thought I couldn’t hear it because I’m used to them, but what if only you can hear it because it’s coming through the barn.”

“Why would the barn play a foghorn?” Jennifer asked incredulously. 

“No, no, no,” Duke shook his head. “Not /from/ the barn. /Through/ the barn. Look, I’m saying that the barn is located near a real world foghorn.” When she still didn’t seem to be getting it he tried a different way. “Okay, just now I could hear a police siren coming through Nathan’s phone. One way to find Nathan would be to find the actual siren.” 

Jennifer got it and stood up excitedly. “Find the foghorn, find the door.” Duke repeated under his breath as he wracked his brain for thoughts. “Great. How?” Jennifer asked. 

“I need my charts,” Duke said heading inside to get them. By the time he got back, Jennifer was in another trance and looked worried. “What is it?” 

“I think she opened her door,” Jennifer said, biting her lip nervously. 

“We’re not ready,” Duke said unrolling the charts much faster than before. They narrowed it down as quickly as they could and got there just at sunup and Duke went to call Nathan. “Nathan’s on his way…and I’m still not seeing the door. Tell me I did not just lie to him,” Duke was more than just worried now. He was bordering on frantic. 

“It’s right here Duke. I’m staring right at it,” she said impatiently. She got that he couldn’t see it, but he could relax and have a little more faith in her at least. 

“Is it open,” Duke has to ask. 

“It’s closed,” Jennifer said with a roll of her eyes. 

“If we don’t open it, Audrey dies,” Duke pointed out. 

“I know. I’m trying. It won’t budge.”

“Nathan’s gonna hate this,” Duke muttered. 

She kept trying, but when Nathan got there he quickly made things worse, as he usually did with Jennifer. “Pull harder or something,” he admonished. 

“It won’t open, Nathan. I think because Audrey closed her door on her side again,” Jennifer said hesitantly. 

“What do you mean she closed her door? What did she change her mind? Did she…”

“I don’t know!” Jennifer shouted. “Stop yelling at me!”

“Nathan! That’s enough,” Duke snapped. He really needed to remember that not everyone could handle his attitude. “We found the door okay? She’s gonna come out any minute. We just…” he trailed off as he noticed the group of armed guard members walking up. “How the hell did they find us?” 

“We followed you Nathan,” Jordan answered the question. “In case you got cold feet. Gimme your gun,” she ordered. 

“No way,” Duke breathed out before he saw Nathan going to do just that. “Nathan don’t do this!” 

“You don’t get a say in this Crocker. He made a deal,” Jordan argued. 

“You shut up,” Duke told her. “Nathan…Nathan listen to me…” When one of the guard members grabbed him before he could get to Nathan, Duke spun and grabbed him by the neck with one hand while the other kept his gun under control. 

“Duke! Let him go. We’re doing this,” Nathan said seriously, meeting Duke’s eyes and barely stopping his wince at the desperation he could see there. “I’m doing this,” he used his eyes to remind Duke that they’d already discussed this and he had given his word. 

Duke shoved the guy away with a hateful look, ignoring the guns that were now pointed at him as Nathan handed his over. “She’s opening her door!” Jennifer interrupted before things could get more out of hand, though the door appearing out of nowhere to everyone else was an effective distraction on its own. Nathan rushed over and tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. “Maybe it has to be me,” Jennifer suggested before reaching for it. 

“No one’s opening that door!” Dave said desperately waving a gun as he ran up. 

“We have to open it, or Audrey will die,” Nathan said carefully. 

When Dave wouldn’t see reason, Jordan used her trouble to incapacitate him and Duke took the opportunity to whisper to Nathan, “When Audrey comes out, I’ll start throwing punches. Give you guys a head start.” He wasn’t at all ready for this. For losing Nathan. He needed more time damnit. At least a chance to say goodbye. 

“No. The troubles end now,” Nathan said firmly. “Go on,” he told Jennifer. 

Once they all recovered from the blast wave and found Audrey, Duke watched in horrified silence as Nathan took his gun back from Jordan and put it in Audrey’s hands. He almost broke when Nathan’s eyes met his, goodbye shining in them, before turning back to Audrey. He didn’t know how he would survive this. Now that it was here he felt like he was being torn apart. Only the thought of how much worse Audrey would feel and how much she would need him to be strong was helping him keep it together. Learning that she had already gotten a new personality was both the best and the worst thing that he could imagine. It meant that he got to keep Nathan for a while longer, but the grief over losing Audrey instead hit hard. Unfortunately, Jordan didn’t want to accept that and Duke had to step in. “Jordan, if she isn’t Audrey anymore then her killing Nathan isn’t gonna end the troubles. It only works if she loves him.” When things fell apart, Duke went with plan A. He ripped the gun from the nearest guard member and punched him in the nose, using the blood to power himself up and let his bloodlust fly mostly free. He held himself back from actually killing, but that was it. “Run!” he yelled to Nathan as he cut a line through the fighters. 

“Forget Crocker! Get Wuornos!” Jordan yelled at them as they tried to do just that, but Duke kept grabbing and throwing them when they tried. Unfortunately, he couldn’t keep them all under control and some of them slipped past him and Duke took off in pursuit.

When they caught Nathan, Duke knew that the only option was to buy time. He just had to sell Vince on his idea which was easier said than done, but in the end it worked, though Nathan was more than a little against it. It wasn’t like they had another choice though. They just had to play along until a better option presented itself. Of course, if he’d realized then that Audrey was still Audrey, he might have tried to find another way. Not that he had any idea of what other way there could be.


	6. Chapter 6

When Audrey all but jumped in his arms when he called her on her identity, Duke was both overjoyed and felt sick. It said a lot that he was almost getting used to those sensations going hand in hand. Now he had Audrey back but that meant the prospect of losing Nathan again. God, this was all so screwed up. He hugged her tightly and told her he was glad she was back, but then made his escape, claiming that his leg was still bothering him and how tiring it was fighting off a possession. He really needed some time to think about this. 

It was a few days later before Duke felt ready to face her again and he stopped by on Monday morning with coffee. “Are you testing me?” she asked amusedly. “I don’t like milk.”

Duke held back a chuckle as he said, “It’s not milk. I know you’re Audrey.”

“Mmm. Baileys,” she sighed as she tried it. “I know you’re Duke.”

“Okay, let me ask you a question,” he said, having been wondering for days. “You land in that field. You realize that if anyone figures out you’re Audrey they’ll kill Nathan, so you decide to pretend to be the person you were in the barn…Lexi?”

“I like it. It rhymes with sexy,” she joked.

“Yes it does,” Duke chucked, tapping his fingers on his coffee mug. “Here’s my question though. How do you…/do/ Lexi when you’re…really Audrey?”

“We’re gonna need a hell of a lot more than Baileys to answer that,” Audrey replied, taking another sip of her coffee.

“See, like that,” Duke said amusedly. “I mean…that’s a really Lexi thing to say.” He was kicking himself for taking a whole day to figure it out. He should have known right away. Granted they were pretty busy, him in particular trying to keep them all alive and then being possessed, but still. He should have known.

“I’m Audrey, alright? I really am. The same Audrey that helps people with troubles and the same Audrey who…went to Colorado with you,” she gave him a smile. “But unlike Sarah or Lucy, I remember Lexi. You know…like a dream or…remembering some kind of fantasy of yourself.” The conversation was interrupted by Nathan driving up. “You /can’t/ tell him that I’m Audrey. He wants to end the troubles and he has that plan and he’s…” she trailed off and got up. “Just promise me that you won’t tell him.”

Duke looked at her incredulously even as he said, “I promise.”

“Thank you.”

“But…he’s gonna figure it out,” Duke pointed out, getting up and walking over to her as she put the dishes in the sink. As soon as Nathan opened his eyes and looked past his resentment he would see it just as easily as Duke had. 

“Why does he have to do that?” she asked pointedly. He hadn’t yet.

“Because when you care about somebody you can’t…they can’t…Look I’m just telling you he’s gonna figure it out. You need to stay away from him.”

“That’s kind of impossible. The guard wants us to work together. That was /your/ idea,” she pointed out. 

“Look, for today you just keep him from figuring out that you’re Audrey and I’ll keep the guard from killing him,” Duke said. He really hated that stupid plan of his now, but what else could he have done. They would have killed Nathan on the spot otherwise. When he heard the knock on the door, he called out, “In here,” before Audrey went to open it. Trying to hide that he was here would just make everything that much more difficult. 

Nathan came around the corner with a look at Duke before focusing on Audrey. “Hey…uh…Lexi. I brought coffee. I…don’t know what you like so um…”

“Spiked,” Audrey said, tapping her cup, the one that Duke had brought her. She was trying to point out that he was just there for coffee and hoped that Nathan wouldn’t read too much into it. “I like it spiked.”

“Right. Yeah. At ten am,” Nathan said, trying and mostly succeeding at keeping the judgement out of his voice as he shot a dirty look at Duke who was leaning nonchalantly against the counter. If Duke was trying to take his place and get Lexi to fall for him so that he was the one who had to die, he was going to be pissed and he tried to transfer all that in his look. 

What followed ended up being an awkward mess, but both Duke and Audrey were glad that it worked, at least somewhat. Audrey was going to be spending the day at the station while Duke was out with Nathan. As soon as they were alone, Nathan confronted him. “What is this about Duke…if you’re trying to make her fall for you instead…”

“No, Nathan. I’m not,” he said honestly. Not that he would be upset if it happened. “I always brought coffee to Audrey a few times a week too. I wanted to give her a pep talk and talk /you/ up a bit to her.” That last part was a lie and he hated himself for it, but what else could he do?

The day was going relatively well until Audrey slipped up with a stupid nickname. She tried to play it off, but given the clock that was counting down on Nathan’s life, she couldn’t bring herself to keep it from him any longer. Once she confirmed for him that she was Audrey, he took a minute to believe it before he rushed at her and hugged her tightly.

Nathan was overjoyed that Audrey was back but when she told him that it had always been her, he was hurt. He grudgingly accepted her excuses, but that didn’t make it hurt any less once Duke came in and he realized, “You knew.”

“Okay we’ve got eight minutes to find Paul Krebbs,” Audrey tried to distract from this conversation.”

Nathan just kept staring at Duke though and Duke knew that he wasn’t going to get out of answering. “I figured it out,” he admitted, unable to lie to Nathan any more than he already had. 

“When?”

“The first day,” he said sheepishly. When Nathan started coming at him, he said, “Nathan, we don’t have time for this…”

“And you didn’t say anything to me?” Nathan accused. “After everything.” He deserved better than that from Duke of all people. 

“I was trying to keep you alive,” Duke snapped.

“I don’t want you to keep me alive. I want to end the troubles. You should want that too…”

“You’re right. I should,” Duke said heatedly before sighing. “Pisses me off that I don’t.” Caring for people never got him anything but hurt, but he loved Nathan too much to let him die and he loved Audrey too much to let her bear the burden of killing him. Thankfully they managed to find the troubled guy before it became a moot point and Nathan died anyway. 

Duke sat out on the deck of his boat, watching for Audrey to get home. He knew that he needed to tell her something, but hadn’t decided how much yet. Especially since Nathan was probably going to hate him for a while and he didn’t want that to cause problems between Nathan and Audrey. When he saw her go up and her lights come on, he headed over and knocked on her door. “Everything go okay with Nathan?” he asked worriedly. 

“As well as can be expected,” she shrugged as she plopped on the couch and he took a seat next to her. “Unfortunately, I don’t think you’re going to get off as easy,” she sighed. “I’m sorry, Duke. I should never have put you in that position.” 

“I’m pretty sure we’ve had this talk before about you not being able to control me,” he chuckled. “I made my own decision and the consequences of it are on me.” 

“I know. It’s just…you and Nathan finally seemed to be getting along and now…”

“It won’t be the first time Nathan’s hated me and I doubt it’ll be the last,” Duke assured her amusedly. At least it was a decent lead-in to what she needed to know. “Nathan and I have a…complicated history.”

“Don’t I know it,” Audrey huffed. “Since you’re bringing it up does that mean you’re going to let me in on some of those deep dark secrets that you both always play so close to the vest?” 

“Yeah. I am. If you can promise that they stay secret,” Duke told her. When she nodded, Duke told her, “Okay so…Nathan and I were together once. For a long time.”

“How did I not know that? How long?” she asked in shock. 

“Five years,” he told her. “And you didn’t know because /no one/ knew. His dad was the chief of police and I was the town criminal.”

“Well…what happened? I mean…five years is a long time.”

“Yeah. It was. And what happened was that I woke up. By that time Nathan was about to graduate the police academy and I knew what an association with me would do to his career and I just couldn’t stand pretending anymore. We had a big fight and I left. And didn’t come back for over ten years.” 

“And that’s why he hated you for so long,” Audrey realized. 

“Mostly,” Duke shrugged. “There was also a misunderstanding when I got back. He thought I used him for his badge, but I didn’t. We got all that cleared up not so long ago, but that’s why things have always been so volatile between us.”

“Yeah. It makes so much more sense now. I…I didn’t realize that either of you were gay though,” she said confused. 

“We’re not. We’re pansexual actually if you have to put a label on it.”

“I haven’t heard of that one,” Audrey said questioningly. 

“It basically just means that gender doesn’t have anything to do with how we feel about someone. It’s the person themselves that count.” 

“Oh. Okay. So why are you telling me now?” she asked curiously. 

“A few reasons. First of all, because I don’t want the fact that he’s going to hate me for a while to come between you two. I can handle it and I get it.”

“I’ll try not to let it,” she promised. 

“Second of all, because I need to tell you that when and if you decide to do this…I want to be there. I /need/ to be there,” Duke told her. 

“Duke, no,” she shook her head. “To begin with, I’m not doing it. Ever. But even if I did…you don’t need to see that.” 

“And you don’t need to do it,” Duke told her. “I need to be there for you as much as for him. See…we had a long frank talk while we were looking for you. And he knows that…that we both…love you. And…/he/ thinks…that you love us both too. So…he wants me to take care of you…after.” 

“Is that why you agreed to let him do it?” she asked disgustedly. “So you could have me like some kind of sick prize?” 

“What? No!” Duke said horrified. “God, Audrey. If that had anything to do with it, do you really think I would have told you?”

“Then why? Why would you possibly let him do this? You loved him once. He’s still your friend. You can’t be that cavalier about his life.”

“I love him still,” he said seriously. “I will always love him. But when he looked me in the eye and begged me to accept his choice…what could I say? I accepted your choice to walk into that barn, how could I do any less for him?” 

Audrey deflated at that, remembering the agony he saw in his face when she had landed in that field and Nathan was trying to get her to shoot him. “Okay. I-I’m sorry I accused you. But I don’t care how much you try to talk me into this…”

“Oh no,” Duke cut her off with a wave of his hand. “I’m not trying to talk you into anything and I told him that up front. If I accept his choice then I’m accepting yours too because this choice is both of yours whether he likes it or not. I’m staying out of it.”

“Except to tell me that you want to be there,” Audrey brought the conversation back around. 

“Except for that, yeah,” Duke told her. Before anything else could be said, there was another knock at the door. 

“Duke, there you are. I want to talk to you,” Nathan said coldly.


	7. Chapter 7

“Sure thing, Nate,” he said flippantly, reaching out to give Audrey’s hands a comforting squeeze as he got up and headed for the door. “I’ll talk to you later.” 

Audrey bit back her admonishment to Nathan to be nice, but still had to say, “Nathan…I want you to know…I asked Duke to keep it secret. He did it for me.” 

Nathan nodded curtly, feeling a little of his anger evaporate, but not all of it by a long shot. They walked back towards the Rouge, Nathan stiffly as he radiated anger and Duke with his same relaxed swagger. Only the slightest tension in his shoulders would clue anyone in on the fact that he wasn’t as relaxed as he seemed and only Nathan knew him well enough to pick up on it, but Nathan wasn’t looking. Once they were on the boat, Nathan grabbed the front of Duke’s shirt and shoved him against the wall. “How the hell could you keep that from me. After everything we’ve been through. After…after we got everything aired out like we did. And you go and keep a secret like this?!” 

Duke raised his arms in a gesture of surrender, but didn’t fight Nathan’s grip. It wasn’t like Nathan was hurting him at all and he completely understood Nathan’s anger. “It wasn’t my secret to tell. And I don’t think you’re mad at me for keeping it from you.”

“No?” Nathan sneered. 

“No. I think you’re mad at yourself because you didn’t figure it out sooner,” Duke hit the nail on the head. Calling Nathan on his crap like this could go one of two ways. Either he was going to get punched and walked out on or Nathan would see reason and accept it. 

Nathan’s fists clenched and released a few times before he let Duke go with a shove. “How?” he finally managed to ask. “What did you see that I didn’t?” 

“Well first off…you were a little too busy sulking to actually pay attention, and don’t say you weren’t. You wouldn’t even look at her,” Duke admonished. “Secondly, my biggest clue was in the basement of the hospital and you weren’t there. You didn’t see the way she looked me in the eye while she was possessed and then just stepped aside and let the kid kill his own body. She knew my curse would kick in and save me and that’s something that Lexi couldn’t have known.” 

“Okay. You were mostly right. But I /am/ still mad at you too,” Nathan said with a slight glare. 

“I know. And you have every right to be. But I wasn’t going to betray Audrey’s trust and if our positions were reversed you would have done the same thing.” 

“Yeah. I guess,” Nathan sighed, going to plop down on the futon that Duke kept on the deck and Duke came to sit next to him. 

“In the vein of not keeping secrets, I told her something about our past,” Duke admitted. 

“Why?” Nathan asked worriedly. 

“Because I don’t know if you’ve realized, but it bugs her when you’re so hard on me. I wanted to help her understand why before it ended up coming between you two over this. I also wanted her to understand why I wanted to be there if she decides to kill you.” 

“Duke…” Nathan sighed wearily. 

“You want me to be there for her, yeah? When do you think she will need me more than after killing the man she loves?” Duke pointed out. 

“Yeah. You have a point there. Just…I don’t want you hurt either.”

“It’s gonna hurt either way, Nate. This way at least we can comfort each other. And I get to know that I spent your last moments with you,” Duke told him. 

“Did you tell her that part too? About me wanting you to take care of her?” 

“Yeah. I did. She didn’t take it well at first, but once I explained it was better.”

“Good. At least she knows she won’t have to be alone,” Nathan nodded. “It might help her make the right decision.” 

“Yeah, /that/ was very much /not/ why I told her,” Duke huffed. 

“I know. But thank you anyway,” Nathan said amusedly with a bump of his shoulders and Duke gave him a playful shove in return. “It’s pretty late and I need to work early in the morning.”

“Night,” Duke said casually, watching Nathan leave before heading in to bed himself. 

The next few days, Audrey spent deep in thought, which suited the Lexi persona pretty well thankfully. She had seen Duke on his boat when she left the morning after her talk and didn’t even see any bruises so apparently he came through his fight with Nathan okay and when she got into the station, Nathan seemed in just as good condition. She had a lot to consider though. From reordering everything she’d thought she’d known about Duke and Nathan to the knowledge that they both loved her and they both knew that she loved them both. Then there was the fact that Nathan wanted to sacrifice himself and then let Duke be with her after. The very thought of it made her sick. Not because of Duke, of course, but the rest. Needless to say her mind was more than a little busy.

Nathan wasn’t sure if Audrey’s distraction was because she was playing up her Lexi personality or if she just had a lot on her mind, but he still couldn’t help but start an argument about it when he took her home one night. “Lexi’s not going anywhere so just drop it,” Audrey said firmly.

“I can’t. I don’t think I can do this anymore,” Nathan said desperately.

“Nathan, what’s your problem? Is this really about Lexi? Because you didn’t have a problem with Sarah.”

“Oh so this about Sarah now?”

“She’s a part of me too. A part that apparently you’re pretty familiar with,” she couldn’t help but add. 

“I’m not going to apologize for what happened. You have no idea how hard this has been for me,” Nathan snapped.

“For you?” Audrey said incredulously. “At least you have the luxury of being one person. At least you know who you are. You know /what/ you are.”

“Well I want to know what /we/ are,” he snapped.

“Too much has happened, Nathan,” she shook her head. “We can’t be Audrey and Nathan. Not anymore. We work together. That’s it.” She wasn’t going to let herself fall in deeper with him just to be forced to kill him later. She couldn’t do it. 

“Right. See you at work,” Nathan said angrily as he stormed out. He only made it as far as the stairs though before he turned and went back. “I don’t care who you are. Or what you are. I love you.” 

When Nathan kissed her, every objection she’d had flew out of her head and she was kissing him back desperately. At least for a minute. It just wasn’t right though. Not quite. And it irked her. She wasn’t going to run away this time though. Not like she had from Duke in Colorado. They were going to talk this out and hopefully figure out what was wrong so it could be fixed instead. She pulled out of the kiss and rested her forehead against his. “We should talk before this goes too far.”

“This is about Duke isn’t it,” Nathan sighed. 

“No,” Audrey shook her head before thinking better of it. “Maybe…in a way.” 

“If you want to be with him, that’s okay. Well, not really because I don’t want him to have to die any more than he wants me to, but…if you’re worried about my feelings, don’t.”

“Not that’s not it,” Audrey assured him. At least she didn’t think it was. “And you’re talking like he would even let me anyway,” she had to point out amusedly. 

“He would,” Nathan told her. “When we were talking about it, that was one of his suggestions when he couldn’t talk me out of it.” 

“You know he still loves you right?” Audrey asked as the conversation got off-track. 

“I know,” Nathan said with a sad smile. 

“And you still love him,” she realized at the look on his face. 

“Yeah. I do. I always will,” Nathan said with a shrug. “But that doesn’t mean that I love you any less.”

“I know,” she told him with a smile of her own. “I am curious though, how that particular conversation actually came up after all these years.” That had been one of the many things that she’d wondered about over the last few days. 

“It might be more accurate to call it an argument than a conversation,” Nathan chuckled. “Duke is pretty good about talking things out. Me, not so much.”

“I can tell,” she teased. “I’m surprised you went for it even with the argument part though.”

“I probably wouldn’t have, but…I didn’t realize how much I still cared for him until I lost you both in that barn…”

“Wait…he was in the barn too?” Audrey asked confused. No one had mentioned that and she didn’t remember seeing him. 

“Yeah. He fell out about a week before you did. He said he was only there for about ten seconds by his reckoning but it was six months here. We had thought you were both dead,” Nathan told her. “But I was so glad to see him when he came back that I was a little less closed off.” 

“I can see that,” Audrey said sympathetically. She couldn’t imagine what he must have been through. 

“And then when Jennifer was trying to figure us out, she asked if you, me, and Duke were all in a relationship together because she said she could see something between Duke and I and it just kinda stuck in my head to figure out where Duke and I stood after everything,” Nathan shrugged. 

“She thought we were all together?” Audrey asked as the idea stuck in her mind. “Is that…something that you and Duke might want?” 

“Want? Yes. If you did. But we realized that it couldn’t work,” Nathan sighed. 

“Why not?” Audrey asked. It could be the answer to everything. Why something was missing with her and Nathan, and why something had been missing with her and Duke. They were missing each other. 

“Because we’re both still troubled. I can’t feel him for one thing…”

“You got over that with Jess. And with Jordan,” she pointed out. 

“Yeah, but with Duke it’s different. I can still remember how he felt and being with him without being able to feel it just makes it ache so much worse,” Nathan told her. “Even if I could get over that though, there’s his trouble to consider. All it would take is a little scratch, or an overenthusiastic lip nibble and one drop of my blood getting on him…”

“Yeah okay,” Audrey said with a wince. That would definitely be bad. “You know…I felt so guilty for so long for loving you both…”

“You shouldn’t have,” Nathan told her. “Sure things got pretty rough for a while after his trouble was activated, but even then, I wouldn’t have minded sharing your heart with him any more than he minds sharing it with me. Neither of us will mind if you choose the other.”

“But that’s the problem. I don’t want to choose,” Audrey sighed. “I…I don’t know if he told you, but in Colorado…”

“He told me,” Nathan nodded. “You kissed, but it wasn’t right. He thinks it was because you didn’t love him.” 

“No, that wasn’t it,” she shook her head. “Because when you and I just kissed here, that wasn’t right either.”

“Because you love us both,” Nathan realized. 

“Yeah. I don’t think anything will be right without both of you,” she admitted. “Maybe we could…I don’t know…test it? I mean, I know we’d have to be careful and we wouldn’t even have to do much, just…if I knew for sure that was why, then maybe I could get past it and…” 

“I would be okay with that,” Nathan agreed. “And if it works, I would also be okay if you wanted to be with him too and just…split time between us or something. And just because we couldn’t go too far all together wouldn’t mean that we couldn’t all spend time together in other ways.” He would be glad to live his dream at least partially for a little while before he died. 

“Then I guess it’ll be up to Duke then. Do you want to call him or should I?” 

“You can. He’ll probably be more likely to answer,” Nathan chuckled. 

“Are you two still fighting over the whole secret thing?” Audrey asked worriedly. 

“No, we got over that pretty much right away,” Nathan assured her. “It’s just because you live so close that he knows when you call you could be in trouble and need him to come help you.” 

“Okay. That makes sense,” Audrey admitted, pulling out her phone and sliding off the piano as Nathan moved back to give her room to do so. “Hey, Duke, if you’re not busy, would you mind coming up for a bit. Nathan and I need to talk to you about something important,” she told him when she answered. She hung up a moment later and told Nathan, “He’ll be here in a minute.”


	8. Chapter 8

She had the door opened almost the second he knocked and once he was inside, they could both tell that she was a little tongue-tied, but only Nathan knew what she wanted to talk about so he tried to help. “You remember what Jennifer suggested and we briefly talked about?” 

“The three-way thing?” Duke raised an eyebrow curiously. 

“Yeah, that,” Nathan chuckled. 

“I thought we figured out it wouldn’t work because of the troubles issue,” Duke reminded him. 

“Well…for right now, I just want to try something…if you’re okay with it,” Audrey managed to say. 

“Try what? And why?” Duke asked. 

“Well, when you and I kissed in Colorado, there was just something missing and it was the same when Nathan and I kissed just now,” she bit her lip nervously, a habit she had picked up from Lexi. Which was coincidentally also the same place she got her boldness to even consider this. 

When Nathan could see that Duke wasn’t quite sure whether he was letting his wishful thinking translate that sentence, he decided to help him out. “She thinks we were both missing the other.” 

Audrey suddenly remembered what Nathan had said about Duke not thinking she loved him, and she also remembered Duke emphasizing that /Nathan/ thought that she loved them both. “I love you both, Duke,” she said gently, lifting her hand to his cheek. “And I need to know if that’s why I can’t feel complete with either of you alone.” 

Duke swallowed heavily, getting lost in her eyes for a moment as he took a step towards her. His eyes flit up to Nathan’s only to get a smile and a nod in return before he leaned down and kissed her gently. Nathan moved up behind her and pressed a series of soft kisses over her neck and shoulder and both men felt her knees buckle. It wasn’t until the both moved to catch her that Nathan’s arm brushed over Duke’s and Nathan jerked like he’d been electrocuted. “What’s wrong?” Duke asked Nathan worriedly. 

Audrey came to her senses quickly at that, hoping that she hadn’t messed everything up because that was pure perfection. “Nathan?” 

“I…I felt you,” Nathan breathed out looking straight at Duke. When Duke let go of Audrey to reach his hand to Nathan, Nathan took it and frowned. “I thought I did anyway.”

“Hang on,” Audrey had an idea and put her hand on Duke’s arm, knowing that she was right when Nathan’s eyes widened and he gripped Duke’s hand tighter. When she could see them both struggling against their desires she chuckled and said, “I’m sure a simple kiss won’t hurt anything as long as you’re careful.” 

That was all the permission they needed as Nathan moved forward and kissed Duke desperately, both men wrapping their free arm around Audrey to pull her close, partially so that she wouldn’t risk losing contact with Duke, but mostly just because they wanted to be close to her. When their kiss broke, Nathan turned to kiss Audrey too as Duke moved his lips to Nathan’s neck. “So…what’s the verdict of the experiment?” Duke asked hopefully as they separated breathlessly. 

“A resounding success,” she sighed happily. 

“So…what now? Where do we go from here?” Duke asked them. 

“Well, from what Audrey and I discussed, since you and I can’t take the chance of being together sexually, sex will have to be with one of us at a time, but we can still spend time together all three of us.” 

“If that’s what you want too,” Audrey told him. 

“Yeah. That would be…well not quite perfect, but as perfect as we can get right now,” Duke chuckled. 

“Come on then,” Audrey smiled brightly pulling them both to the couch. “We can figure the rest out. For right now, I just want to be with you both.” 

Nathan and Duke settled on either side of Audrey and the three of them tangled together on the couch with a blanket shielding them all from the chill as there was quite a bit of talking and even more kisses exchanged. By the time they moved to the bed to sleep, they’d decided that Audrey and Nathan would alternate evenings for paperwork and on Nathan’s paperwork evening, Audrey and Duke could have their private time before Nathan got there and on the nights when Audrey worked late Duke would spend some quality time with Nathan before heading to his boat when Audrey got home and they could have the night and weekends would also be for the three of them. 

There were plenty of nights where both Nathan and Audrey had to work late on an active case and things had to be juggled, but none of them minded. Especially since those were usually the difficult cases that Duke joined them to help out on too. Pretending that they weren’t together was difficult for all of them though, but they made it through. They had been so enjoying living in their little bubbles that when reality came crashing in it crashed hard. The Driscoll brothers ended up with a pressure trouble that had nearly taken out half the town and when Jack Driscoll asked Duke to kill him to end it, it struck Nathan how selfish he’d been acting. Naturally, Duke had found another way without having to kill Jack, but it didn’t change Nathan’s mind. 

Nathan knew that Duke wanted to be there when it happened, but he wanted to talk to Audrey about it first so he asked Duke to give them some time. He didn’t need two people arguing against him. Duke easily agreed and headed back to his boat, having no idea what they wanted to talk about, but trusting that they would fill him in later if it was important. When Duke got to the boat, he found Jennifer talking to Vince and Dave and quickly became alarmed at the conversation. When they wanted to find Nathan and Lexi to talk about, he convinced them to wait until tomorrow. They needed their alone time. It wasn’t until they were going through the book a little more that they figured out that if Audrey went through with killing Nathan it would doom them all. Duke was suddenly glad that they’d promised to let him be there if they did it, so he didn’t have to worry about it happening tonight and his relief caused him to slip up and call her Audrey, which of course, Vince and Dave were quick to pick up on.

Audrey had a feeling she knew what Nathan wanted to talk about and she turned out to be right. “It’s like you said to Aiden. Some truths are hard to accept, but they need us to do it for them. Haven needs us to do this.”

“I can’t believe we’re actually talking about this,” Audrey said hauntedly, hoping that she could talk him out of this. 

“Jack Driscoll wanted to sacrifice himself to end one trouble. My death ends them all,” Nathan pointed out. He grabbed a chair and pulled it over, sitting in front of Audrey and taking her hands. “How can I walk away from that. Especially now that someone’s altering the rules, putting troubles in families that never had them. You know what that means right?”

“It means it’s getting worse,” Audrey said heart-brokenly. 

“And how lucky are we? We can make everything better…with one bullet.” Nathan pulled out his gun and put it in Audrey’s hands. “You’re supposed to help people with their troubles. You’re meant to do it karmically remember?” he said with a soft smile. “What better way than to cure them all forever?”

Audrey couldn’t manage to come up with a good argument for that, but Nathan wasn’t done ripping her heart out as he started listing some of the people who had died since she’d come back. People with families who loved them. All the people who were in pain and finished it up with a “Maybe you can see it the way I do. This is the most loving thing we could possibly do.” 

“Okay,” she breathed out. “You’re right. W-we’ll get D-Duke back here and…and do what we need to do,” she sniffled, tears streaming down her cheeks. 

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to say this to him, so you’ll have to do it for me,” Nathan said hoarsely, holding back his own tears. “But this time I spent with the two of you has been the best of my life and knowing that you two will still have each other after I’m gone makes me happier than you know. Please don’t push each other away and know that I’ll always love you both and I’ll always be with you.” 

“We love you too, Nathan,” Audrey managed to croak out. “You’ve made us so happy.” She knew that she could speak for Duke there too. He’d said those things often enough in the past both when the three of them were together and when she was alone with him. Before anything else had been said, they were interrupted by an intruder and Audrey grabbed Nathan’s gun since her hand was closer and her gun was on the table and turned and shot at him. 

Duke had been trying to convince the others that there was no danger of it happening tonight without spilling the biggest secret of their relationship when they heard the gunshot from the apartment. Jennifer stayed behind, not exactly in the habit of running /towards/ gunshots, but Duke was off like a shot, easily leaving Vince and Dave in the dust despite them trying to keep up, as they ran across the dock and up the stairs. 

Nathan was still trying to figure out what she’d seen since it had been gone by the time he’d gotten off the floor where Audrey had shoved him and turned around when Duke barreled in the door and Audrey took the chance to slip out after him. “Hey!” Duke called as he came in, relieved to see Nathan run towards him. “We heard gunshots, what happened?” 

“There was an intruder. Audrey went after him. Take the back,” Nathan told Duke.

“I’m on it,” Duke said as he rushed to do just that while Nathan went towards the front door before being stopped by Vince and Dave who he hadn’t noticed before that. 

“/Audrey/ went after him?” Vince asked suspiciously. 

“Duke called her Audrey too,” Dave chimed in. 

“She’s Audrey. I’ll explain later,” Nathan said quickly trying again to get to the door to back his lovers up in case they managed to catch the guy. 

“You’ll explain now!” Vince growled. 

“Audrey is going to shoot me. That guy got in the way. When she gets back she /will/ kill me,” Nathan said shrugging off Vince’s grip and turning for the door yet again. 

“No! She won’t,” Vince called making Nathan pause for a split second before deciding to deal with it later and running out the door. 

Jennifer got up the nerve to go up to the apartment before the three of them gave up on the chase and came back. As soon as they were told that Audrey couldn’t kill Nathan to end the troubles, she grinned happily and jumped in Nathan’s arms kissing him desperately. Vince and Dave couldn’t help but smile at their antics, despite the grave subject, but their smiles turned to shock when Audrey gave Duke the same treatment. That was nothing compared to their reactions when Duke swept Nathan into a kiss as well though, with one hand in Audrey’s of course. Jennifer let out a happy squeal. “Yes! I knew it! You three are so perfect together!” 

“And we have you to thank for it,” Duke chuckled holding both of his lover’s tightly. 

“Me? Why?” Jennifer asked curiously. 

“For putting the idea in our heads,” Nathan grinned. 

“Yes, thank you very much for that,” Audrey told her gratefully before getting serious again. “But we still need to figure out how the guy got out of the barn.” That got them back down to business.


	9. Chapter 9

Once they’d figured out everything they could that night, Vince, Dave, and Jennifer left. Duke kissed Audrey and then Nathan deeply before saying, “I’ll let you get back to your night.”

Nathan caught Duke’s hand before he left, shooting a concerned look at Audrey who nodded. She would have to take the lead in this conversation because Nathan wasn’t so good with words. She wasn’t that much better. Duke was the wordy one, but she was better than Nathan at least. “Hey, Duke. Can we talk?” 

Duke managed to suppress his wince as he nodded, but couldn’t hide the pain in his eyes nearly as well as he wanted to. Now that Nathan didn’t have to die, he wasn’t needed to pick up the pieces afterwards anymore. “Yeah. Of course.” 

Audrey and Nathan settled on either side of Duke on the couch as Audrey said, “Now that we don’t have to hide or keep up appearances, we need you to know that you’re always welcome with us.”

“I mean, a couple hours alone time on our nights is nice, but if not for how tempting it would be for you to join in we wouldn’t even really need that,” Nathan added. 

“We know that you enjoy your alone time and how much you like sleeping on your boat, so we won’t be offended if you want to keep things the way they are with that, but don’t ever think it’s because we don’t want you with us,” Audrey said gently. 

Duke looked back and forth between them, weight visibly lifting from his shoulders with their every word as the smile slowly grew on his face. “That’s a very different talk than I expected,” he chuckled. 

“We know,” Nathan said with a sad smile. 

“Which just shows how important it was that we have it,” Audrey said, leaning her head on Duke’s shoulder. “We love you, Duke. We never want to lose you.” 

“I love you both too,” Duke said happily, wrapping an arm around each of them. “So how about this? Since we don’t have to hide and all…On your nights you’re welcome to come down to the boat whenever you want and we can stay there sometimes too.”

“Yeah. I think I’d like that,” Audrey said with a smile and Nathan nodded. 

“And we can sleep on the boats on other nights too,” Nathan suggested. 

“That would be nice,” Duke agreed. “My bed is bigger anyway,” he chuckled. The three of them all fit in Audrey’s bed, but it was a tight fit. 

“Why don’t we head down to the boat tonight?” Audrey asked hopefully. She’d missed the Rouge while playing Lexi. 

The three of them sat up chatting with Jennifer for a while, Audrey sprawled across both her guys’ laps. She hadn’t had a chance to talk much with Jennifer and was enjoying the chance to get to know her. Duke thought very highly of her, though Nathan was more ambivalent. Not that Nathan didn’t like her. They just didn’t have the same rapport as she did with Duke. She did plenty of gushing over how happy she was for the three of them and how cute they all were together and by the time they all went to bed, Audrey could definitely consider her a friend too. 

The next day, when Jennifer suddenly changed her tune and was going at Audrey for leading them both on, Audrey had a feeling something was going on. The biggest clue though was Nathan suddenly acting like a jealous prick over the amnesiac from the barn that she was trying to help. Duke seemed okay, but Dwight going after him hard wasn’t helping and when she found out that Dwight had tased Duke, she had to forcibly remind herself that there was some kind of trouble affecting him or she would have hit him. With Duke’s help they managed to get the three of them locked down and Duke stayed back to watch them while Audrey took William to find whatever stupid box this was all about. Finding out how much she had been played was a shock and she felt more than a little stupid, but once his buddies, who apparently weren’t even human, showed up, she had no choice but to let them get away. 

She got back to the station as the apologies were making the way around and the three very embarrassed people tried to assure everyone that they didn’t mean. Jennifer in particular was a mess. Not only was she not as used to the troubles as the others, but she was more embarrassed than most too since her silly little crush on Duke had come out into the open. When Audrey came in, she hugged her and started babbling apologies. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I really do think the three of you are perfect together and I would never want to split you guys up…”

“It’s okay, Jennifer,” Audrey assured her amusedly. “I know. Troubles can make people do weird things and you already made your views on our relationship clear last night.” When she could see the relief in Jennifer’s face, but still with a little mortification mixed in she leaned forward and whispered in her ear, “And it’s okay that you have a crush on Duke. Most people do. He’s kinda used to it.” That pulled a laugh from Jennifer and brought her back to just minor embarrassment. That didn’t mean that Duke wasn’t going to tease her from time to time about it, but that was just Duke. It was never in a mean way. 

Since everything was as settled as it could be, they all went their separate ways and the trio ended up in Audrey’s apartment, really needing the time alone after all that. Duke was much fussed over after being tased so badly and as much as he grumbled over it, he was still touched. He was still getting used to the idea that people actually cared enough to do so. At one point, Audrey let herself break down over her own stupidity at getting played so expertly by William and then it was her turn to be fussed over. Nathan was mostly just embarrassed about how he’d acted, but powered through. They all knew that it wasn’t actually him so it was easily put out of their minds and even with the trouble affecting him, he hadn’t gotten the slightest bit jealous over Duke and Audrey. It was just the interloper that was the target of his ire so there was no need to even make sure there weren’t underlying issues. 

They managed to get a few easy days before all hell broke loose again courtesy of William amping up a trouble that caused a volcano to form in the middle of Haven. There weren’t as many people as they feared lost to the lava and pyroclastic flow, but the structural damage was a whole different story and all three of them were working their butts off trying to save as many as they could. By the time the mess was as under control as they could make it, they were too tired to do anything but shower and then fall into bed together. 

When Audrey woke up the next morning and didn’t feel any bodies next to her, she frowned. Duke was usually up first, so him being gone wasn’t that strange, but Nathan practically had to be dragged out of bed in the morning. Her next thought was the realization that she wasn’t in bed and she felt the panic overwhelm her as her eyes snapped open. She was relieved to see that she was alone and not restrained, but was still more than a little confused about what was going on. When she went carefully outside, she realized that she was home…sort of. Her apartment was a storage room and the Gull was a bait shop. When she ran across Detective Duke Crocker she was more than a little amused, but realizing that he didn’t have any idea who she was put quite a damper on that. 

When she learned that there were no troubles in Haven, she let herself start to consider not fixing any of this. As long as she could get her guys back, she would be fine living in this idyllic version of Haven. Judging by Duke’s flirting, she would easily be able to get him back, but when she met Nathan /Hansen/ she quickly noticed the wedding ring on his hand and closed her eyes against the wash of pain. She was glad that he found happiness, of course, but that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t miss him desperately if she stayed. She briefly entertained the thought that he could be married to Duke, but disregarded it almost immediately. Granted, in her world they’d been together for so long since high school and without the divide of the law to split them up it would have been reasonable, but she hadn’t seen a wedding ring on Duke and she knew him. He wouldn’t have been flirting so heavily if he was taken. Light playful flirting, sure, but not like that. At least she could still have one of her guys and wasn’t the safety and happiness of the entire town worth losing the other?

William had other ideas though and was threatening to tear it all down, prompting Audrey to use the number that Duke gave her sooner than she intended. The lunch was a total disaster and she failed to convince him of much until he got the call about Vince and Dave being murdered, but that led to her being arrested. On the plus side, she had nothing else to lose and told him the whole story, despite how insane it must sound to him, and she could see him struggling to believe it. She should have known that no matter what world they were in, some part of Duke would always know and trust her. It came in handy with Nathan too when his wife and daughter were kidnapped and he reluctantly trusted her to help get them back instead of calling the police. Of course, Duke showed up anyway, having gotten her note about William’s targets, but from there everything went to hell. The moment that Duke was shot, all thoughts of staying in this Haven flew out of her head. Living in a world where Nathan was happy with someone else would have been bad enough, but she couldn’t live in a world where either of them were dead. 

When she woke up again in her own bed, sandwiched between her lovers after William shot Cliff, her gasp and sitting up woke them both. At Audrey’s urging, Nathan grabbed his phone and called someone in to check on Cliff and Suzie before she started explaining what had happened. Nathan felt a little stab of insecurity start to well up at the idea that she’d been so willing to stay there where she could only have Duke and not him, but he swatted it away. It was a peaceful Haven without the troubles. It was everything that she had always worked so hard for. Of course, she had been tempted to stay. He would have too in her place and it wasn’t as though she had just been willing to throw him aside. His alternate self was happy there and if it was him, he could walk away from her for her happiness too. Duke’s also. No, there was no reason for it to bother him and the flash disappeared as quickly as it came. Learning that, according to William, Audrey’s original personality had created the troubles in the first place was a blow, but they were both quick to assure her that it meant nothing, though it should be kept between the three of them. 

Once they got the call that Cliff had been killed by William before the officers arrived and they managed to figure out where he could possibly be hiding, the three of them got dressed and headed straight there to find the cocky son of a bitch waiting for them and taunting them. Once Nathan had enough and shot him and they learned that he and Audrey were connected, they knew why. They hated leaving Audrey in the hospital, but she was quick to give them the kick in the pants they needed to get out there and protect Jennifer.


	10. Chapter 10

When they learned that William had activated a baby’s trouble that caused him to kill people every time he cried, Audrey knew that it had gone too far. Neither of her guys liked her going to talk to William alone, but couldn’t argue with the fact that he couldn’t hurt her any more than they could hurt him. They refused to be far though and waited at the truck for her while she walked up the hill. Things didn’t go according to plan though. When she refused to do what William wanted and even went off on him he smirked. “You really are like her in so many ways,” he chuckled. “All except the most important one of course.”

“I am /nothing/ like her,” Audrey sneered. 

“Oh come on. Stringing along both those guys and keeping them eating out of your hand at the same time…that is classic Mara.”

“I’m not stringing /anyone/ along. I love them and we’re all happy together,” Audrey snapped. 

“Is that so,” William smirked. “You’re telling me you don’t love one of them more than the other? That one of them isn’t just around for his usefulness?” 

“Yes, that’s what I’m telling you,” Audrey said hatefully. 

“Let’s test that out shall we? Oh this will be fun,” he rubbed his hands together before making a gesture and both guys were dragged out of the trees and forced to their knees with their hands cuffed behind their backs. 

“What are you doing?” she yelled, moving to rush towards them. 

William grabbed her arm. “Ah-ah-ah I don’t think you want to do that. My little friends here are a little bit on the jumpy side. Wouldn’t want them to slip and accidentally kill your toys would we?” 

“What do you want, William?” Audrey growled. 

“I want you to choose,” William grinned evilly. 

“Choose?” Audrey asked horrified. 

“Yes. Which one lives, and which one dies. Which one you love the most.” 

“I can’t,” she shook her head. 

“Then they’ll both die,” William said smugly. “You can save one of them or lose them both. Your choice.” 

“It’s okay, Audrey. I know,” Duke spoke up. Dying would suck, but at least this way he wouldn’t be taking Nathan with him. 

“No, Duke. You don’t,” Audrey told him before turning to William. She knew now what she needed to do. It had probably been inevitable from the start. He said she would choose who lived and who died and that choice was easy. It just happened to be the one that he wouldn’t allow her to make which meant that she would need to play it smart. “I can’t choose between them and I won’t.”

“So be it then,” William shrugged. 

Before he could give the order, Audrey continued speaking quickly, “But I am willing to make a deal.” 

“What kind of deal?” William asked suspiciously. 

“I would be willing to come with you, wherever you want. Do whatever you think we should do to find my memories of Mara again. I will do whatever I can to become her for you.”

“Audrey, no!” Nathan and Duke both said at the same time. 

She turned and looked at them seriously and said, “It’s my choice.” After all the talk they’d been through in the past about respecting each other’s choices, that was enough to shut them up. At least for the moment. 

“And all I have to do in return is let them go?” William asked bringing the conversation back around. 

“No. That’s hardly a fair trade,” Audrey scoffed. “First, you have to take the troubles away. All of them. From everyone. Then you let them go and I’ll be all yours.” If she had to leave them behind, she had to at least get rid of the troubles first so they could actually be with each other all the way. So that they could lean on each other and take care of each other. If she wasn’t there to allow Nathan to feel who knew what would happen between them. Not to mention Duke’s trouble. 

William considered that for a moment. Mara wouldn’t be particularly happy about all the troubles being gone, but she would forgive him if it was the only way to get her back and then they could start back over again from a blank canvas. Avoid their earlier mistakes and make them even more wonderful. It would be like a second honeymoon. Once he had Mara back, everything would be fixed, and Nathan and Duke would be their first experiments. “Okay,” he finally agreed. “You have a deal.” He held out his hand to shake on it, fully trusting the goody-two-shoes Audrey Parker to honor a deal made in good faith. 

Audrey reached her hand to shake, ignoring the pleas coming from her boys. Once it was done, William opened his box and closed his eyes. Audrey saw little black balls pull from both Nathan and Duke’s chests and fly towards the box, followed by hundreds…thousands even…more flying in from every direction and joining the mass in the box. She wondered how they all fit, but figured it would be beyond her understanding anyway. If it was even real and not just a trick. When William closed the box and reached out a hand to her with a smirk, she shook her head. “First, I confirm that you did what you said you did.”

“Very well,” William said amusedly patient. 

Audrey didn’t need to ask Nathan if he could feel again. She could see his wince as he fought against his cuffs. She pulled out her phone and called Dwight. “Audrey? Do you know what’s going on? Some black ball just flew from the chests of half the town.”

“If all went according to plan, that was the troubles. They should be gone from everyone. Can you make some calls and confirm for me and then call me back here in five minutes?” Audrey told him. 

“How did you do this?” Dwight asked in awe. 

“I don’t have time to explain right now. Can you just confirm it for me, please?” 

“Yeah. Okay. I’ll call you back,” Dwight promised before hanging up. First he called a few of the safe houses where he knew that large groups of troubled people were gathered and they all said the same thing. Their troubles were gone. He just had one more thing to do before calling Audrey back. He grabbed a gun and shot at the floor, wincing in expectation, but the bullet went through the floor instead of curving back up to him. He waved off the officers that ran in at the gunshot to check on him and called it a misfire, and then called Audrey back. “I checked in with some of the larger groups and as best we can tell, they’re all gone. I don’t know what you did, but thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Dwight. We’ll make sure you get the full story later,” she promised, trying to keep her voice even. Now that she had confirmation that it was done, the tears were filling her eyes at the thought of what she had to do now. 

“Shall we go?” William asked reaching out a hand to her. 

“Call back your goons first. You think I’m gonna leave with you and then let them do whatever they want with Duke and Nathan?” she scoffed. 

“So untrusting,” William clucked at her before opening the box again and the two golems broke apart and returned to the box. 

Once that was done, Audrey crouched down to look at both of her beaten men sadly as she said, “Always remember that I love you both. Take care of each other and be happy,” she blinked back her tears. She needed to keep her wits about her and that meant not falling apart. She made sure to keep enough distance between them that they couldn’t reach her to interfere in any way, no matter how much she wished that she could kiss them goodbye. She made it seem like she was crouching down to be at their level, but in reality she was working her smaller gun out of her hidden ankle holster since her normal one was taken by William earlier. She was careful not to let them see either. If they figured out what she was going to do, they would warn William in an effort to save her life. She couldn’t let them do that. 

She got the gun free and hidden in her sleeve just as William came up and put a hand on her shoulder and tossed the keys to the cuffs which landed in front of Duke. “No more stalling.” 

“No more stalling,” she agreed with a shaky breath as she got up and turned to face him. She heard a set of cuffs clank to the ground and knew she was out of time anyway. She brought her gun up and shot him point blank between the eyes and they both fell to the ground just as Duke was rushing over and Nathan got his cuffs off. 

Duke rushed to Audrey first, frantically brushing her hair back from her face and feeling for a pulse, barely registering that there wasn’t a mark on her, despite the fact that she should have a bullet hole in her head. He had just managed to find the weak pulse when Nathan said from William’s side. “He’s gone. Is she…”

“She’s alive,” Duke breathed out in relief as Nathan moved to Audrey’s other side. Nathan reached out with one hand to confirm Audrey’s pulse while the other gripped Duke’s hand tightly. He didn’t even care that he was able to feel everything now. It didn’t matter in the slightest. All that mattered…to both of them…was Audrey. “Come on, sweetheart,” Duke whispered encouragingly as he caressed her cheek. “Come back to us.” 

“Her pulse is weak,” Nathan said worriedly. 

“I know,” Duke replied. “But it’s getting stronger. It was barely there the first time I checked.” 

Audrey chose that moment to stir and Nathan abandoned her wrist to run a hand through her hair. “Audrey,” he called. “Come on. That’s it.”

“N-nathan?” she groaned, creaking her eyes open. “Duke?” she smiled when she saw him too. “How am I…here?” 

“We don’t know and right this minute, I don’t actually care,” Duke said happily as they both helped her to sit up, sandwiching her between them in a hug. 

“How are you? Are you okay?” Nathan asked her, holding onto both her and Duke for dear life.

“I feel like a herd of elephants just stampeded over me and my head is about to explode, but I’m alive,” she said in awe, basking in the love of her boys. 

“What were you thinking?” Duke asked, loving gestures belying his harsh tone. 

“He told me that I could choose who lived and who died. Neither of you were an acceptable choice to me, but he would never have let me choose myself for obvious reasons. I did what I had to do, and you can’t tell me that either of you would have made a different choice in my shoes.” 

“How did you know he could get rid of the troubles like that?” Nathan asked to distract from the fact that neither of them could argue with that. 

“I didn’t know it would be so quick and easy,” she admitted. “But if he could give them and modify them, it stood to reason that he would be able to get rid of them too.” 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Duke asked, seeing her wince as she moved. “Maybe we should take you to the hospital just to make sure. I mean, you almost died there.” 

“I’m fine,” she assured them. “I just want to go home.” 

“I got her. You grab that box and call someone to pick that thing up,” Duke sneered at William. Both of them were pretty beat up, but Nathan was worse and suddenly being able to feel the pain that he hadn’t felt in so many years wouldn’t be helping him. Duke didn’t trust Audrey to walk on her own so he picked her up gently and carried her to the car. The fact that she didn’t protest told them both just how weak she really was. 

Once they were in the truck headed back towards the Gull, Nathan said, “I’m wondering if maybe you survived because it was you who shot him.”

“What do you mean?” Duke asked. He hadn’t quite gotten so far as to wonder about the how, too busy thanking the what. 

“You think that maybe whatever connected us didn’t completely work against each other?” Audrey followed. 

“But then why would it have hurt you at all?” Duke wondered. 

“Maybe I was just buffered against it, but it couldn’t stop it completely,” Audrey shrugged and then winced when it hurt. 

“That makes sense,” Nathan agreed. None of them would ever figure out the truth. That it was William and Mara that were connected and that when William died at her hand Mara died inside her. That in a way she was handed a death sentence in that she lost her immortality. She would now age and die as a full human. Since none of them ever knew otherwise in the first place, they would never notice the difference.


	11. Chapter 11

Once they got home, Duke again carried Audrey up the stairs and tucked her into bed. “Do you need anything?” Nathan asked. 

“I just want to sleep for a week,” she muttered. “You guys should go.”

“Where would we go?” Duke scoffed with a roll of his eyes. 

“You’re not troubled anymore. Either of you. I know how much you’ve missed each other,” she mumbled already feeling the sleep try to take her. “Go…have fun…see you…tomorrow.” 

They were both torn between wanting to stay with her and doing just what she said. It was Duke who came up with an adequate solution. “There aren’t any more troubles. The bad guy is dead. She’s safe. Why don’t we ask Jennifer to come sit with her just to make sure that she doesn’t make a turn for the worse? That way we have the boat to ourselves too.”

Nathan considered that for a moment before grinning. “Okay. That sounds like a plan.” He let out a laugh when Duke grabbed his hand and all but dragged him out the door and to the boat. It was a few hours later before they relieved Jennifer and climbed into bed on either side of Audrey for the night, feeling better than they had in years. Being able to fully reconnect between them, to complete the last missing piece of their relationship, was like a balm to their souls. 

Audrey felt much better when she woke up the next morning and snuggled deeper into the two sets of arms around her. When she realized that the sun wasn’t even up yet, she just sighed and went back to sleep. The next time she woke up, there was only one set of arms and the smell of coffee and bacon was what had roused her. “How are you feeling?” Duke asked from his spot at the stove when he realized that she was awake. 

“Better. Still a little tired, but otherwise fine,” she whispered as she slowly unwrapped herself from Nathan’s arms to make her way to the bathroom. 

“You can always go back to bed,” Duke assured her as she came out. 

“No, I’m good,” she yawned. “It’s more of a weary kind of tired than a sleepy one.” 

“In that case, you want to rouse the sleepyhead or should we let him sleep?” Duke asked playfully as he started making up the plates. 

“M’up,” Nathan grumbled from the bed. 

Audrey laughed and started pouring up the coffee for the three of them. “Don’t look up to me,” she teased. 

Nathan huffed and threw his legs over the side of the bed and sat up with a mild glare. “There.” 

That was enough for Audrey to take his coffee mug over and hand it to him with a kiss. She knew that he would make his way out of bed and to the table soon enough. She and Duke were halfway through their breakfast when Nathan joined them and by the time they finished, he was wide awake. “We should head into the station,” Audrey told him. “And grab Vince and Dave along the way. They’ll all need the full story.”

“What are we going to do with that thing?” Duke asked, pointing at the box on the far counter. Just being around it creeped him out, but letting it out of their sight and giving someone else the chance to do god knows what with the trouble making stuff was even worse. 

“I don’t know,” Audrey sighed. “Suggestions?” 

“Any idea how to destroy it?” Nathan asked hopefully, getting blank looks all around. 

“Maybe Vince or Dave will have some ideas on that. If not, we’ll need to look into taking it out of play. My first thought is to dump it in the ocean, but we can’t be sure that it wouldn’t contaminate things,” Duke threw in.

“What if we were to seal it up nice and tight?” Nathan asked. “You could maybe build a metal box around it…”

“Or a few metal boxes,” Audrey added. 

“Yeah, make it nice and secure and then we can toss it somewhere it’ll never be found,” Nathan finished. 

“That could work,” Duke admitted, mind working over the problem. “I’ll see what I can come up with while you two are checking in with the parents today.” 

Audrey and Nathan both chuckled at Duke’s wording as they worked together to clean up. Duke never minded doing it, but they had decided long ago that if Duke was going to do all the cooking…which really was the only safe way to do things to avoid accidental poisonings…then Nathan and Audrey would clean up. “What are we going to do with it in the meantime?” Nathan asked. 

“I have quite a few hiding places on the Rouge that no one would ever find,” Duke offered. 

“That would probably be best then. We definitely don’t want to leave it lying around,” Audrey agreed. 

“Do you need us to get Jennifer out of the way so you can hide it?” Nathan asked. 

“Nah. There are plenty of areas of the boat that she doesn’t go into anyway,” Duke assured them as he came over to give them both a kiss before grabbing the box and heading out to hide it. 

Once they finished the dishes, Nathan and Audrey headed to the station to find Vince and Dave already there in Dwight’s office waiting for them. Once the whole story was explained, they asked if anyone had any better ideas on what to do with the box, but no one did. None of the rest of them were particularly comfortable with Duke being in charge of the disposal, but accepted it when Nathan and Audrey agreed to oversee it just to make them feel better. They trusted Duke completely, but got why others didn’t. 

Once that was settled, Dwight tried to hand off the chief of police back to Nathan, who refused. “Look, I’m not a cop. I never have been. I only took the job to help keep order with the troubles going haywire,” Dwight tried to reason with him. 

“I get that, but I lost the respect of the town. At least the ones who have any idea what’s going on. They’re not going to accept me back as chief,” Nathan argued. 

“That might change now that the troubles are gone,” Audrey pointed out. 

“Then we’ll see,” Nathan sighed. “Why don’t we give it a couple months for things to settle down and people to get more comfortable with the fact that it’s over and then we can talk about it again.” He wasn’t sure about being a cop at all anymore and could use the time to think it over and discuss it with his lovers. 

“That sounds like a reasonable plan,” Vince chimed in before Dwight could turn it down. 

That night over dinner, Nathan brought up the subject with Duke and Audrey. “Now that the troubles are over and things are getting back to normal…unless Duke is willing to give up his shadier business endeavors, I don’t see how I can keep being a cop.”

“This isn’t like before Nathan,” Duke told him, knowing that Nathan was afraid of Duke leaving again because of it. “This time you’re not low man on the totem pole being watched for any sign of impropriety. And I’m not /just/ the town criminal. You’ll be the chief of police. The head honcho. And I’m a lot more liked around here now.”

“I would still answer to the town selectmen,” Nathan pointed out. 

“And you really think we can’t handle them?” Audrey asked amusedly. “They know how many lives that Duke has saved over the last few years. They’re not going to make a fuss and if they do, we just remind them of that.” 

“Yeah. Okay,” Nathan sighed in relief. He still wasn’t sure if being a cop was still right for him anymore, but at least he wasn’t being pushed into a decision now and having to chose between that and Duke. He could take his time and figure it out. “But we do need to set some ground rules,” he told Duke. 

“What kind of ground rules?” Duke asked curiously. 

“Don’t be blatant about it and as long as you don’t cross a line, we’ll be hands off,” he told his lover. “Audrey?” he realized that he should ask for her opinion before speaking for them both. 

“What he said,” Audrey easily agreed. 

“And what would you consider crossing the line?” Duke asked, just to make sure where he stood. 

“Nothing that you would ever do,” Audrey shrugged. “Murder, kidnapping, torture, bombings, arms dealing, that kind of thing. As long as you’re not hurting anyone, which we all know you wouldn’t, we’re good.” 

Duke looked to Nathan and got a nod of agreement, so he grinned. “Then we’ll be good.” Nathan realized at that point that he needed to keep the job. At least for a while. Unless he could handpick a replacement. They didn’t need to end up with some stick up the ass by the books cop that would hound Duke out of town. 

It took two weeks for Duke to finish securing the box and in addition to having many thick layers of boxes welded tightly around it, each layer had the words engraved, in multiple languages, ‘Danger: Toxic: Do not break’. He put it in the ten most commonly spoken languages in the world, plus any others he spoke and didn’t have to look up. During that time, they had noticed that Jennifer was around less and less and when they told her they needed to take the boat out for a few days, she didn’t have any problem with vacating it for the weekend. It wasn’t until a month later, when Nathan took over as Chief of Police, that they found out why. That she and Dwight had been dating. 

After a few months when it was clear that Haven was back to being the peaceful place it once was, Duke called his brother. He told him that all the issues were taken care of and he would be welcomed back if he wanted to come, even for a visit. Wade hadn’t been dealing so well alone and his divorce was taking a lot out of him emotionally speaking, so he didn’t hesitate to come back to town. He found the relationship between the three of them odd, but as long as his brother was happy, he had no problem with it. Duke ended up splitting ownership of the Gull with him, but only gave him forty-nine percent to avoid any issues if they disagreed. 

Wade ended up dating Jordan and they were married six months after Dwight and Jennifer. Wade and Jordan only had one son while Dwight and Jennifer had a son and a daughter. Jennifer had wanted to name their daughter Isabel at first, but when Dwight pointed out the similarities of the most common nickname of Izzy to his first daughter’s name of Lizzy, Jennifer relented and they went with Anabel instead. 

Duke, Audrey, and Nathan, while unable to be married in the traditional way, did end up having a three-way handfasting ceremony a few years after the troubles ended making everyone wonder what took them so long. It was a little over a year after that their first child was born. Since he was born on Christmas Eve, they agreed that there could be no better name for him than Garland. Their daughter was born a year after that and two years later their last pregnancy surprised them with fraternal twin boys. None of them ever knew or cared which of the guys was the biological father of any of the children though there were always a lot of jokes on the subject, particularly when one of them was being rebellious and it was blamed on Duke’s genes. 

Audrey took a leave of absence during her first pregnancy and then decided not to go back. Without the troubles, she didn’t have nearly enough challenge there to keep her happy, and even if she had /actually/ been an FBI agent and could go back to it, it would have involved being away from home and her family too much. It was time for her and Duke to be partners now, not that she involved herself in any of his less than legal endeavors. She helped out at the Gull and with the boat and they shared the childcare. By the time the twins were six, Nathan had given up the ghost too and passed off the chief position to Stan, who had no problems with the hands-off policy regarding Duke…within reason. He had stayed long enough to get his pension though so between that, the revenue from the Gull, and the money that they didn’t want to know how Duke was making, they were set which meant that he could spend his time with his family too. There were a lot of fishing trips…usually without coast guard interference these days…and they got the Gull built up even better than before. A fitting legacy to leave their children.


End file.
